The Man From Laramie

Anthony Mann
1955

A guy whose name rhymes with "Ron Gord" takes the title for my favorite director of westerns, but Anthony Mann comes in at a close second. His frontier America is serious as a heart attack and peppered with complex character motivations and morality. Jimmy Stewart stars here as he does in others (Winchester '73, The Naked Spur) delivering supplies to a town thoroughly under the yoke of bigwig beef baron Alec Waggoman (Donald Crisp, making little effort to mask his British accent). Waggoman's a decent sort but his kid's a spoiled brat verging on psychotic, and his seemingly level-headed right hand man Vic proves a scheming back-dealer. Unglamorous revenge and ugly americans abound in the picture - repeated hallmarks of Mann's westerns. Not only does Junior burn down Stewart's wagons for accidentally trespassing on Waggoman ranch land, he takes it upon himself to personally murder the mules as well. I've always thought Stewart was at his best when his avuncular folksiness gives way to seething rage, and seethe he does. There's a great scene early on in which Jimmy fistfights with the bullies who wronged him, kicking up a diaphanous cloud of dust in the Cinemascope frame while the tightly packed cattle bellow away. Of course, it's a little dicey that the Apache Indians are presented as a MacGuffin of mass destruction, and the female lead is tacked on and superfluous, but overall The Man From Laramie remains a solid picture.