weezeralfalfa This interesting western was shot mainly around Durango, CO, and the Aztec ruins in NM., as well as some studio shots, all in Technicolor. I enjoyed it despite a few questionable aspects........ Clearly, the heart of the drama is the complex and fluctuating relationship between James Cagney's and John Derek's characters. It starts out something like the relationship between mature ex-sheriff Henry Fonda and young new sheriff Anthony Perkins, in "The Tin Star", where Fonda gives Perkins advice on how to be an effective sheriff and gunslinger. In the present case, the mature Cagney gives a reluctant young Derek a chance to prove himself as a sheriff's deputy. But, in this case, it doesn't work out well, as Derek loses a prisoner(played by Ernest Borgnine) he is escorting to another town. Derek quits in embarrassment.. He then, unknowingly, joins a band of thieves, who rob the town bank in broad daylight, while practically the whole town is in church. The gang would soon meet an ignominious end, without involvement of the sheriff or town's people........Let me say that, when Cagney and Derek first met, out in the boondocks , Cagney very nearly pugged Derek, who came upon him quite by surprise. This was just the first of a series of incidents where it was the intent of one to defend or to shoot or otherwise promote the death of the other. While on the trail of the bank robbers, Derek suddenly, pulled out his gun and was about to fire at Cagney, when his horse reared up. This is when Cagney discovered that he was allied with the robbers(In what capacity, isn't apparent). For a while, they rode together in an uneasy truce. But when, they have to swim a raging river, Cagney calls out for help, but Derek ignores him. Derek gets to the far shore first, and heads for the Aztec ruins, where he finds Borgnine: the prisoner who escaped from him(Why did he come to this forsaken place?). They have an uneasy truce. WARNING: SPOILER ALERT! Cagney survives the rapids and later encounters these ruins, eventually finding the other 2. Initially, there is an uneasy truce. But, Borgnine draws on Cagney, who shoots him apparently dead. The remaining 2 have some words. Borgnine is not quite dead, and slowly reaches for his gun on the floor. Cagney doesn't see this, but Derek finally does, as Borgnine is about to shoot Cagney. Derek draws his gun and fires at Borgnine, while Cagney shoots Derek, whom he assumed drew to kill him: Only one lucky survivor, and he knows where the bank money is hidden........Viveca Lindfors, as Helga Swenson, who emigrated from Sweden with her father, takes a liking to Cagney, seeing his devotion to his friend Derek, who had serious gunshot wounds instilled by a posse that assumed that he, along with Cagney, were a pair of train robbers. Derek is staying with the Swensons during recovery. Pretty soon, Cagney and Helga are talking marriage. Cagney says he wants to live in their house. But, this may sometimes cause conflict with Mr. Swensen. Conveniently, the latter is formalistically killed in the bank raid, thus eliminating this potential problem. This principle is applied in many westerns, where the traditional significant other of a person is eliminated to symbolically clear the way for a new significant other.

dbdumonteil "Run for cover" occupies a curious place in Nicholas Ray's brilliant filmography.Sandwiched between "Johnny Guitar" and "Rebel without a cause,it suffered accordingly.They say Ray himself disliked it.And however,in "Run for cover" he opened up as he never did before.In "knock on any door" ,Ray had already displayed a "father" -"son" relationship between Bogart and John Derek (who takes on here roughly the same kind of part he played at the beginning of the fifties).Ray would reach his peak with the following work ("Rebel" ) where Plato wanted Jim to be his dad and began to think of a new family with his pal and Judy.Davey is a tragic character .He seems to be born under a bad sign ,he is known to have a very bad reputation wherever he goes.It's obvious in the scene of the train:whereas Matt (Cagney) wants to give the money back to the town,Davey is thinking of the life he could lead if this loot were his.Matt knows that Davey needs someone to become a man .Alone he would walk on crutches .His leg is a transparent metaphor.Maybe he thinks of a new family he would rebuild with Helga (Viceca Lindfords).The relationship between the mature man and the Swede is full of tenderness and human warmth,a permanent feature in Ray's canon (see the lovers of "they live by night" and the teenagers in " Rebel without a cause".Like Jeff in "lusty man",Matt had a raw deal and he wants to make the best of the years which he's still got to live.Jeff will help Wes become a man in the cruel world of rodeo,but it's a different matter with Davey Bishop (what a surname!).It's remarkable that violence appears twice after scenes depicting children: the first time when Matt is making a wooden gun for a boy ;the second time in the church as a choir of little boys and girls is singing a canticle to praise the Lord."Rebel without a cause" is probably Ray's most underrated work.Davey remains his most moving character ;without any mawkishness ,the director paints the picture of the rebel with a cause,who cannot understand why he should work for eight dollars a week when there's plenty of money to take.The last line is my favorite in any Ray movie.In its own special way,it preserves the viewer from despair.

Poseidon-3 A rather diverse cast was assembled for this fairly standard western. Cagney plays a loner, traveling towards a town in which he hopes to put down stakes when he runs into hotshot young 'un Derek. The two strike up a tenuous camaraderie and happen upon a passing train whose engineers mistake them for robbers. Soon the townspeople and the sheriff are of the same mind and a posse comes out to shoot Cagney and Derek for a crime they didn't commit! Cagney is grazed in the scuffle, but Derek is near death and has a badly mangled leg. Once the misunderstanding is cleared up, Cagney stays on at a farm on the outskirts of town to look after Derek. The farm, run by old-world Swede Hersholt and his single daughter Lindfors, begins to grow on Cagney and he decides to stay in town despite the mentality of the citizens and eventually rises to Sheriff. Lindfors also begins to grow on Cagney and, after Derek is well enough to limp around, they fall in love. Things get sticky, however, when the local bank is held up and Cagney must confront the same attitude from the townsfolk as he encountered when he met them (and Derek proves to be a less able Deputy than Cagney had hoped.) What is a rather typical western storyline is given a small boost by the skill of the director and the beautiful (and surprisingly lush and varied) New Mexican scenery. Cagney gives a solid performance and is well-matched by the energetic and sometimes intense Derek. (Derek is a full six inches taller than Cagney, so he's hunched over in various scenes and Cagney is elevated in order to play down the height differential. One scene in the jail, however, has Cagney looking downright diminutive in relation to the townsmen who are one small step up, yet tower over him.) The always tan and handsome Derek provides a small hint of the teen angst that director Ray would give full attention to in his later "Rebel Without a Cause". Lindfors is attractive and creative in her thankless role, with perhaps a bit too much hand-wringing and hysteria in her voice. Also, on her fourth husband in real life, she is hardly typecast as the repressed and virginal farm daughter! Folks who've been curious to know who in the world Hersholt was from his yearly humanitarian award given out by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences can get a healthy taste of him here. He brings a dry, but wry and understated quality to the stern, old-fashioned father. Borgnine is effective in a very small role as an outlaw. There's a very corny title song that gets the attention right off the bat, but things turn serious soon after. It's a simple, but diverting western with a mild surprise or two along the way.

Nazi_Fighter_David Nicholas Ray will be remembered for "The Lusty Men," "Johnny Guitar," "Run for Cover," and "The True Story of Jesse James."With a slight echo of "High Noon," the film is Cagney's first Western, shot in stunning Technicolor and VistaVision, since Lloyd Bacon's "Oklahoma Kid" in 1939... Cagney was beginning to show his age, but his performance is colorful as always... It is interesting to remark that Grant Withers whom Cagney had supported in his film debut ("Sinner's Holiday," 1930) and his third movie ("Other Men's Women", 1931) is in his support as Gentry....Released from a six-year prison term for a crime he did not commit, Cagney goes West, where he meets John Derek...Riding along, they innocently become involved in a train robbery and are later ambushed by a posse... Derek's leg is smashed and is taken to Viveca Lindfors' farm where she nurses him and falls in love with Cagney...The townsfolk offer Cagney the tin star, and he appoints Derek (who is now a cripple), as his deputy...Derek's bitterness over his bad accident separates the two men in different directions and soon are seen on opposite side in a fight involving Grant Withers' widely known gang and a group of Indians...