January is for New Year’s Resolutions, and your Picture Show bloggers have resolved to watch more award-winning classic films.
RODNEY BOWCOCK: It’s 1885 when our scene opens in Bridger’s Wells Nevada as two men, Art Croft (Harry Morgan) and Gil Carter (Henry Fonda) ride into town. The two men have been working winter range and spring roundups and are due for a break, and hopefully a visit with Carter’s fiancée Rose Mapen (Mary Beth Hughes). Mapen has left town to San Francisco to get married to another man, and the town is being ravaged by a gang of cattle thieves. Being strangers, Carter and Croft are looked at suspiciously among the townspeople. However, the target soon moves away from them as word quickly spreads of a local man being murdered. Soon, a lynch mob is round up, full of cowboys thirsty for justice at their own hands. Croft and Carter join the mob against their better thoughts, but at least it gets the target away from them.
The group travels to a parcel of land known as Ox-Bow and there they come across a trio of men (Dana Andrews, Anthony Quinn and Francis Ford) that circumstantially seem to be the murderers. The mob vigorously and forcefully interrogates them, but no matter what they say, their mind is made up. In the chance that you have not seen this drama, I dare not reveal more about the proceedings.
SAMANTHA GLASSER: I went into this movie assuming I was about to watch a dry western. The opening sequence where a bunch of men burst into the saloon in an uproar because one of their friends has been killed by suspected cattle rustlers felt like scenes at the end of many westerns I've seen. People run around on the boards between buildings, hollering through the open doors to round up their posse and lots of dust gets kicked up in the street by running feet and horses. Lookie-loos come out of the businesses to find out what is happening. However, as the movie progressed, it got quieter and more serious. It's almost like director William Wellman was tricking us into getting comfortable so he could knock us out with a powerful statement.
RB: Director William Wellman impactfully uses silence and close ups on facial expressions in lieu of any sort of narration to tell the story in a short 75 minutes, a time usually reserved for more lightweight B pictures. This tactic, along with the editing, barely allowing any subplots creates a taut and impactful drama. Wellman was a fan of the 1940 novel and was only able to get Darryl Zanuck to agree to the film if Wellman agreed to direct two other films (these were Thunder Birds and Buffalo Bill). Zanuck and Wellman hadn’t spoken in years, but based on this stipulation, he agreed to make the film if it could be made on a budget of $500,000. Zanuck, correctly, felt that the film may not make a lot of money, but realized the importance of a prestige picture, which this certainly was. The film only made $750,000 after languishing on the shelves at Fox for months because the executives couldn’t figure out how to market it. Being wartime certainly didn’t help with this sort of a sober theme.
SG: The first thing I noticed about the movie when I turned it on was that the print quality was not up to snuff for an official studio release, especially not for a movie included on the National Film Registry. Perhaps it is still being neglected.
RB: Fox lost the original camera negative in the 70s. Kino released it on Blu-ray but it is out of print.
SG: The cast is fantastic and includes many familiar faces. Just like in last week's movie, we have a former silent film star in a role much later in life. Francis Ford played Dad, the frightened senile old man who was one of the accused. Undercrank recently released silent feature The Craving on disk, for those curious to see him in his youth.
RB: Unlike last week’s award-winning film, this one is chockfull of uncredited character actors that we tend to enjoy. Billy Benedict, Margaret Hamilton and even Laird Cregar pop up in small roles.
SG: I noticed Morgan, who I've seen in quite a few things lately including Down to the Sea in Ships and the television show Dragnet. He is a skilled supporting player with a pleasant face here in an early role. His stoicism makes it all the more important when he stands up against injustice.
One of the many characters in this film is the preacher played by Leigh Whipper, a notable actor who attended Howard University. He was a black man working in an era that was not friendly to them, the first African American to join Actor's Equity and later he helped create the Negro Actors Guild.
The inclusion of Anthony Quinn's character made a strong statement that modern audiences can relate to because of the tensions at the southern border. He only speaks Spanish at first, and when he begins to speak English, Jane Darwell's character shouts, "Oh, so he speaks American!" as if his attempt at assimilation is proof of his guilt. They are suspicious of him more than the other two accused because of his other-ness and treat him more brutally.
Darwell plays the lone woman of the posse, and her virulence is notable among the group. There is an interesting father and son dynamic played out by Frank Conroy and William Eythe, one a bloodthirsty Major dead set on toughening up his pacifistic son through abuse.
Andrews looks great with long wavy hair. He had a drinking problem that gave him a rough rugged look later in his career, and he is always a welcome face in war movies and noir. Here he looks softer and fits into the hard-working everyman with a family part seamlessly.
RB: One role that was barely more than a walk-on, is the third billed appearance by Mary Beth Hughes, the Fox starlet that appeared in this film in between appearances in Orchestra Wives and an obscure Milton Berle B called Over My Dead Body. These were the final three films that she made under her Fox contract before she was let go from Fox (she’d sign a three picture deal with Universal in short order, before slogging around the indie studios for years). Lynn Bari felt that Fox never gave Hughes a fair break, and while searching contemporary reviews for Ox-Bow Incident, it’s easy to agree with her. The Cincinnati Enquirer review pointed this out: “I know that Mary Beth Hughes is mentioned as being in the film, but her picture outside the theatre is merely a come-on. She’s on the screen about three minutes.” It almost seems like there was more to the subplot with Hughes that may have been cut.
SG: The only sour note was the insertion of a girl into the mix. She shows up in a stagecoach newly wed to George Meeker (who always seems to play slimy characters) and we discover she was Fonda's girl before he left town. The sequence doesn't add much to the story other than to illustrate that the angry mob is willing to accuse anyone handy of the murder. It could have been cut out.
This movie does an impressive job of riling up the audience's emotions. We aren't sure who to side with right away, because Fonda's character is not painted to be a reasonable man from the beginning. In fact, his knee-jerk violence in the saloon is more in line with that of the angry mob later in the story.
The day after shooting finished, Fonda went to Naval Headquarters in downtown Los Angeles and enlisted. It was not a publicity stunt and there were no photographers on hand to memorialize the event. He was to go through boot camp in San Diego until Darryl Zanuck intervened, saying he needed Fonda for the war effort at home. The Navy allowed it, and Fonda made The Immortal Sergeant, which he didn't feel was worth the leave.
RB: In later years, Zanuck complained that a Laurel and Hardy film (likely Jitterbugs) outdrew The Ox-Bow Incident in theaters, and while scouring the small-town reviews in Motion Picture Herald, it becomes obvious that many audiences didn’t quite understand what they were seeing. Many complained about the lack of action, and some outright seemed to side with the lynch mob. “An interesting picture if you go for lynchings. This proves something or other against them as a form of punishment,” notes one particularly tone-deaf example. “So far as we are able to figure, this picture was supposed to carry a great object lesson. It certainly taught us one; in the future we will, if necessary pay for and shelve similar masterpieces. It’s less expensive.” Well, they missed out.
SG: Archer Winston of the NY Post called it, "One of the most gripping and significant movies of the year. Here are depth, maturity and suspense, going to make up a film which should be most highly recommended, but not to everyone, especially the lightminded."
Showmen's Trade Review echoed this statement. "From an artistic point of view, The Ox-Bow Incident is a screen triumph — a stark, powerful and compelling drama that will surely take its place among the great pictures of all time... While it is true that the picture is certain to strike hard at the emotions of nearly everyone who sees it, only the spectator who believes in the screen as a medium of art will hail it with superlatives; others will prefer to shrug it off as 'too depressing' or 'too bold and daring' while the memory of it sears their minds like a hot branding iron."
The small towns seemed to indeed have difficulty with it. E.M. Freiburger from the Paramount Theatre in Dewey, Oklahoma said, "Had some complaints and walkouts on this Western. They said it was too gruesome, or they couldn't understand it. Business was light."
Mayme Musselman at the Princess Theatre in Lincoln, Kansas called it, "A pretty gruesome story that didn't make us any friends." The New Paltz Theatre in New York paired it on a double bill with Get Hep To Love and had more success.
The National Board of Review called it the best drama of the year.
It was a nice surprise that the movie lived up to the reputation of being nominated for an Academy Award. It resonated with me powerfully. Four stars.
RB: This is an incredible film. One of the best I’ve seen in recent memory. Five stars. A total must see if you haven’t seen it, and if you have, it may be time to revisit it.
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