Mon 4 Dec 2017
A Western Book! Movie!! Review by Dan Stumpf: CLAIR HUFFAKER – Seven Ways from Sundown / Film (1960).
Posted by Steve under Reviews , Western Fiction , Western movies[11] Comments
CLAIR HUFFAKER – Seven Ways from Sundown, Fawcett Crest #398, paperback original, 1960. Pocket, paperback, 1975. Cover art by Robert Maguire.
SEVEN WAYS FROM SUNDOWN. Universal, 1960. Audie Murphy, Barry Sullivan, Venetia Stevenson, John McIntire, Kenneth Tobey. Screenplay by Clair Huffaker, based on his novel Directed by Harry Keller.
I rather suspect Huffaker wrote this book in close conjunction with the film, as part of a package deal, but neither of them is the worse for it. The book is compact and fast-moving as anything from Fawcett, but rich with colorful description and action in the Gold Medal style, spiced with bits of genuine cowboy humor.
The story is a Western Staple: A lawman (in this case a green Texas Ranger named Seven Ways from Sundown Smith) brings in an outlaw (legendary gunman Jim Flood) across miles of dangerous country, and as the two are forced into an uneasy alliance, a mutual respect forms and grows into friendship.
Huffaker has a deft way of putting across a months-long trek in a very few pages as the journey across four states and back again spins out in less than 130 pages, yet never seems rushed. We get a real feel for the toil of men and horses across snow, mountain and plain. And he doesn’t stint on the action either; Smith and Flood run into nasty Apaches, bounty hunters, bored roughnecks, plain ol’ owlhoots , and a conniving fellow Ranger, all handled with a pace and economy you just don’t see in great literature anymore.
Over at Universal Studios, producer Gordon Kay had figured out how to make a good Audie Murphy movie: hire a strong character actor, give him all the good lines, and let Audie carry the story.
In this case, they had one of the best in Barry Sullivan, who could look deadly just by shrugging his shoulders. It helps too that Murphy is cast as a neophyte lawman; like many other war heroes, he never projected toughness onscreen.
Perhaps best of all though, Seven Ways from Sundown was directed by Harry Keller, who cut his teeth on fast-moving catch-penny Westerns at Republic, the best school of all for this sort of thing. Keller never made a great Western, but he never made a dull one either, and he moves Seven Ways from Sundown along with grace and vigor that make it a pleasure to watch.
December 5th, 2017 at 8:14 am
I saw this a few months ago and enjoyed it. Audie Murphy has often been criticized about not looking tough enough, not acting mean enough, etc. Looking too young, too baby faced. But the reality is that this guy time and time again in real life during WW II showed amazing bravery and unbelievable good luck. He was the highest decorated soldier.
He killed hundreds of German soldiers, yet somehow survived the experience and became a western movie star. Yet can’t do these things and not be tough as hell despite how you look.
December 5th, 2017 at 8:19 am
I am charmed by the fact that so many real-life heroes don’t project that quality on-screen.
December 5th, 2017 at 10:59 am
As Dan knows, this is my favorite Audie Murphy western and even got me a DVD of the film. Dan, one war hero who did was Neville Brand who I read was the 3rd most decorated soldier of World War II.
December 5th, 2017 at 11:35 am
A disproportionate number of the Hollywood contingent during the Second War distinguished themselves in combat. Too many to mention here. And I do mean real heroism.
December 5th, 2017 at 3:52 pm
Great film, and book. Huffaker penned one of my favorite Western Novels (as opposed to Western alone) in THE COWBOY AND THE COSSACK and wrote well of Western history as well, but had a pace and style of storytelling that was well versed in the simpler (or seeming so) virtues of the form. Like Marvin Albert discussed earlier, a real master of the form who distinguished himself with virtually every book.
Murphy was always at his best playing a version of himself, but managed in doing so to give many a solid performance, and one fine one (John Huston’s THE RED BADGE OF COURAGE). Here his earnest and slightly naive Ranger is the perfect foil for Sullivan’s world weary gunman, the real affection between the two characters lifting this above the average by quite a few notches.
James Cagney, who was largely responsible for Murphy’s acting career, gave him some notable tips, too, such as always fight a larger actor (not hard to find in either Murphy or Cagney’s case) on screen, and be himself.
All I can say is the formula worked even when Audie was cast as James Stewart’s younger brother in NIGHT PASSAGE.
Barry,
Just a couple of names that particularly distinguished themselves including Wayne Morris (I think the most decorated actor who was working at the time the War began), Douglas Fairbanks Jr. (the Silver Star), and the highly decorated Mickey Rooney. Many more served with some distinction even some of those making films for the military putting themselves in great danger including John Ford and John Huston (and the latter’s cameraman Eric Ambler).
Re Audie, Michael Landon always liked to tell that back when Audie had one of his television series (he had two both short lived), during the heyday of the Western in that medium that many of them filming on the same sets would meet after a days shooting, and being a bunch of guys Landon, Peter Breck (BLACK SADDLE), Chuck Connors, and others would end up arguing who was faster on the draw.
Finally, Murphy tired of the bravado, and as he stood up to leave informed the entire room he would arrive at the studio early the next morning and draw against anyone who wanted to try.
As Landon said, they were all excited, they all knew who and what Audie was, but then just as he walked out he turned in the doorway and without a smile added: “Of course I’ll be using real bullets.”
There were no more discussions of who was faster on the draw.
December 6th, 2017 at 4:31 pm
W.H. Auden also thought that appearances deceived when it came to heroism.
A poem he wrote shortly after WWII:
Behold the manly mesomorph
Showing his bulging biceps off,
Whom social workers love to touch,
Though the loveliest girls do not care for him much.
Pretty to watch with bat or ball,
An Achilles, too, in a bar-room brawl,
But in the ditch of hopeless odds,
The hour of desertion by brass and gods,
Not a hero. It is the pink-and-white,
Fastidious, almost girlish in the night
When the proud-arsed broad-shouldered break and run,
Who covers their retreat, dies at his gun.
December 6th, 2017 at 4:45 pm
Auden is not exactly the guy to represent masculinity, athleticism or heroism in any way.
December 7th, 2017 at 2:52 am
Represent, no, Barry, but the point was that Audie Murphy didn’t represent masculinity, athleticism or heroism in his appearance, merely in his behaviour.
December 7th, 2017 at 12:20 pm
Roger, too much is being read into Murphy’s soft voice and size. He projected danger, otherwise he would not have enjoyed an extended career. And most of the Hollywood tough guys were of relatively small stature, while John Wayne, thought of in these terms, mostly projected geniality. It is called, acting.
December 8th, 2017 at 12:00 am
For me the quality Audie Murphy projected best was a sense of decency. His best roles, even when he played a “bad guy: like NIGHT PASSAGE, always seemed to turn on that decency, that this was someone who would stand for what he believed when the time come, not seek trouble, but not run either. Viewers always looked forward to that moment in most of his films when you glimpsed the danger beneath the surface.
It was a variation on the standard good guy role, given a bit something extra by the contrast of his boyishness and what audiences actually knew about him.
But certainly there was no shortage of smaller tough guy actors, and if Murphy’s heroism got him in the door in the first place what kept him working was that he learned within his limited ability as an actor to capitalize on what audiences wanted from him with the help of good directors, writers, and producers.
It is ironic, that if he hadn’t been playing himself in TO HELL AND BACK it could almost be a role you would write for Audie Murphy the actor.
Hollywood was smart enough to capitalize on that and Murphy dedicated enough to learn the basics of acting. Best of all, he had the quality any star needs, the camera loved him.
December 8th, 2017 at 1:06 am
I like all you wrote about Murphy, but in Night Passage, he has the best part, and is essentially the hero and romantic center, although the more important Stewart, is manipulated into appearing to be all that Audie actually is. Story-wise that is.