Thu 26 Feb 2009
Western movie review: RELENTLESS (1948).
Posted by Steve under Reviews , Western movies[13] Comments
RELENTLESS. Columbia, 1948. Robert Young, Marguerite Chapman, Willard Parker, Akim Tamiroff, Barton MacLane, Mike Mazurki, Clem Bevans. Based on the novel Three Were Thoroughbreds by Kenneth Perkins. Director: George Sherman.
I taped this movie many years ago, but for a time that was just as long, I put off actually sitting down and watching until several days ago. I just couldn’t see Robert Young as a cowboy star, you see. Once you know an actor as a family man (Father Knows Best) or a kindly family doctor (Marcus Welby, M.D.). it’s hard to go back and see him in a western like this one, or even a crime film. He just doesn’t fit the image.
Looking through his list of credits, though, I see that Young was in Western Union (1941) and another film I don’t recall knowing about before, The Half-Breed (1952). I may have missed another, but even so, while it’s not a long list, he’s hardly a zero in the western category. (His first movie credit may have been The Black Camel, the 1931 Charlie Chan film with Warner Oland.)
And in Relentless he proved to me that he could shoot, he could ride, and he was good with horses, and that’s a fact, even if he still looks like a dude to me. In the story, he’s a drifter who’s framed for the murder of one of a pair of claim-jumpers.
Turns out, of course, that it was the other half of the pair who did it, and to clear his name Nick Buckley (that’s Young) has to track down the real killer (that’s Barton MacLane) while the sheriff (Willard Parker — he’s the one on the right in the lobby card above — who later became Ranger Jace Pearson on TV’s Tales of the Texas Rangers) is hard on his heels throughout the movie.
Where does Marguerite Chapman come in? you ask, and you should. She’s the proprietor and sole operator of a general store in a covered wagon, sort of a traveling saleslady, you might say. When she (Luella Purdy) and Nate Buckley both proclaim their independence and total disinterest in getting hitched up with anyone, you know from that moment on that their fate is sealed — even though when Luella once shows up in a dress rather than in her rather fetching cowgirl garb, Buckley barely takes notice — seemingly far more interested in the colt he’d had hopes of raising into a race horse than in her.
Marguerite Chapman, a vivacious brunette and a true girl-next-door type, had a decent career in Hollywood, but sadly, I don’t believe that the general public remembers her at all today.
Interestingly, IMDB says she was asked to appear as “Old Rose” Calver in Titanic, but she was too ill at the time (1997, when she was 89) and the role went to Gloria Stuart. (She’s far too glamorous in the close-up photo I’ve found. She doesn’t look anything like this in this movie, but I thought I’d show it to you anyway.)
As for the movie itself, filmed in color to good effect, it keeps the players on the move throughout the film, with more than enough story line to fill its full 90 minutes or so. It’s even entertaining enough to watch a second time.
But getting back to Robert Young, even after all this, I still have to tell you that he’s too soft-spoken and nice to be a western star. As a guy more interested in his horses rather than the girl — for all but the final scene! — he’s dumb enough in that sense to be one, that’s for sure.
February 26th, 2009 at 6:42 am
It’s interesting to note that many movie stars were simply hopeless in westerns. For instance in addition to Robert Young, such major stars as Humphrey Bogart, Edward G. Robinson, James Cagney, George Raft, and others were laughable as western characters. You could imagine them as gangsters but not as cowboys.
February 26th, 2009 at 8:57 am
Steve, I haven’t seen RELENTLESS (I remember the TV movie of the same name based on a Brian Garfield novel, didn’t know about the 1948 film), but Robert Young was quite good in WESTERN UNION. Since he played an Easterner, the fish-out-of-water quotient actually worked to his and the film’s advantage. The fact he wasn’t a tough gunfighter like his co-lead, Randolph Scott, worked to dramatic advantage at the end where he takes the long walk down main street to confront heavy Barton MacLaine and avenge Scott’s death.
February 26th, 2009 at 9:11 am
It’s been a while, but I remember liking WESTERN UNION. I always wished Fritz Lang had made more Westerns, as I’ve always loved RANCHO NOTORIOUS. Other than THE RETURN OF FRANK JAMES (which I’ve never seen) are there any other Westerns of his that I am missing?
February 26th, 2009 at 11:25 am
Early in his career, Fritz Lang made a serial called THE SPIDERS. It has a 15 minute segment, in which his hero has a cowboy adventure.
The first half of THE SPIDERS is quite good. People might enjoy this silent movie serial, at least in its above-average first episode (the second half is greatly inferior).
I like RANCHO NOTORIOUS too. Lang’s weakest Western is THE RETURN OF FRANK JAMES, which is punk despite a few good touches.
George Sherman is now something of a cult director of B-Movies. The Western Channel is currently showing REPRISAL!, which is good. TCM also shows Sherman’s CRIME DOCTOR’S COURAGE, an outstanding B-movie whodunit, complete with impossible crimes.
February 26th, 2009 at 12:16 pm
“It’s hard to go back and see him [Robert Young] in a western like this one, or even a crime film. He just doesn’t fit the image.”
In THEY WON’T BELIEVE ME (1947), Young uses that wholesome image and superbly plays it off against type:
(SPOILERS)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/They_Won%27t_Believe_Me
February 26th, 2009 at 12:35 pm
Wholesome. That’s the word I was looking for and ended up saying “nice.”
And thanks to all who’ve commented so far. Feedback like this is extremely helpful.
Giving it some thought, I don’t believe that Young was playing against type in Relentless. It’s Nick Buckley’s innate honesty that keeps him on the trail of the real killer and trying to clear his name, rather than cutting out of the territory altogether.
With another actor, that aspect of the story might not have been so believable.
So I don’t think he was as hopeless in the role as some of those other guys that, Walker, you name. They would have been as bad in this movie as any other western they may have been in, and probably worse.
As Fred says about Robert Young’s role in Western Union, he may have been a duck out of water in Relentless, but he played the role as smoothly and effortlessly as if it were made for him.
And — as usual — any review or comment posted here always produces a long list of other movies for me to watch (or books to read). You guys are good. Too good!
PS. It doesn’t look like Brian Garfield’s Relentless is available anywhere, alas.
February 26th, 2009 at 8:41 pm
To see Young cast completely against type, and doing well at it, check out Hitchcock’s The Secret Agent where Young plays a WWI German spy opposite British agents John Gielgud, Madeline Carroll, and Peter Lorre. It’s based on Somerset Maugham’s Ashenden, and while not major Hitchcock still worth seeing if only for Lorre (as a more or less good guy) and Young as a villain.
He was effective in Western Union, which has one of the screen westerns most shocking scenes when Barton MacLaine guns down Randolph Scott. As George Macdonald Fraser said in Hollywood History, it’s a moment few eight year old boys seeing the film the first time ever forgot. The Return of Frank James is the weakest of Lang’s western trio (it’s a sequel to the film Jesse James with Tyrone Power and Henry Fonda), but does have it’s good qualites, notably John Carradine as Bob Ford who killed Jesse, and Fonda’s Frank James playing himself on stage.
Re Robert Young he did well in the noir The Second Woman too, and appears in an offbest Nick and Nora style comedy mystery directed by Bride of Frankenstein’s James Whale, Remember Last Night (1935) based on Adam Hobouse’s novel. Young and Constance Cummings are hard drinking and playing couple who end up playing detective with the aid of New York cop pal Edward Arnold. It’s more interesting for Whale’s direction than as a mystery, but worth seeing. Young was also great as a humane but tough cop in the seminal noir film Crossfire with Robert Mitchum and Robert Ryan, based on director Richard Brooks novel about anti-semitism at home.
I don’t know if it is true or not, but Young is supposedly the actor who uttered the famous line “Tennis anyone?” for the first time in a film. I do know that it was Bogart’s first line on Broadway in a bit part.
December 22nd, 2013 at 9:05 pm
Sir,
I love that move (Relentless with Rohert Young. Yes, he was just great in that movie. Please sir release the movie if you can. Thanks.
January 15th, 2014 at 9:50 am
Relentless is being shown on Movie! TV. If you forget Marcus Welby and Father Knows Best, he’s so believable as Nick. It’s a really progressive movie for its time.. Luella is an independent capable woman. And such a nice inclusion of love of equines. Usually in the Westerns, horses are expendable.
November 28th, 2017 at 1:38 pm
Love all westerns. Young is pretty good in this. Was skeptical at first too with father knows best background. Great scenery throughout.
July 24th, 2019 at 2:55 pm
Love this film so much.
I worked with horse for 18 years. Racehorses,mares and foals and then stallions.
This is an unusual western, as its a good action western, but it also caters for horsey folk like myself.
I found myself choking up many a time, especially at the end.
Robert Young was a fabulous actor and so handsome .
October 3rd, 2020 at 1:26 pm
I thought Robert Young was quite good in “Relentless†and Marguerite Chapman also gave a nice performance. There were three other things about this movie that made it a cut above the usual Westerns of the ‘40s.
1. Not only does Marguerite play a strong female character who doesn’t just fade into the scenery, but Young actually talks about that she should be an independent woman who doesn’t need a man. It’s pretty progressive for 1948.
2. The color photography is beautiful, especially the stunning sunset about 15 minutes before the end.
3. My favorite part of the movie was the subplot about the burro and the colt. It’s rare that you see a Western where the animals play a pivotal role in the story and are actually given a relationship with some depth. It adds an extra layer to this movie.
October 3rd, 2020 at 5:53 pm
A great followup review, Daniel. You may have liked Robert Young in this one more than I did, but I think we’re of the same mind when it comes to Marguerite Chapman.