julesfdelorme Glenn Ford always seemed like an unlikely Western movie star to me. Short and a little pudgy, Ford never seemed to have that rugged machismo of John Wayne or Clint Eastwood, or the midwestern aw shucks of Jimmy Stewart, Gary Cooper or Henry Fonda. He looked more like your friend's uncle than a Western hero. And yet Ford managed to star in some very good and very major classic Westerns. He was a decent actor. Not a great one. But good enough that you never really caught him acting. But the reason that Ford probably did rise to be a star probably had more to do with him being likable and seeming like a simple and honest man. He did play against type very well in 3:10 to Yuma as the villain, but mostly Ford played simple and honest men who didn't go looking for fights but wouldn't back down when they knew someone was in the wrong. He didn't even dress like the usual cowboy. No vests, spurs or chaps in most Glenn Ford movies. It was usually a jean jacket or a sheepskin coat. Simple. Honest. Never flashy. The Violent Men is a prototypical Glenn Ford movie. He plays a small time rancher, recovering from a civil war injury, who refuses to even carry a gun until a much larger rancher played by Edward G. Robinson and his far more wicked wife, played by the Glenn Ford of Femme Fatales, Barbara Stanwyck, force him to make a stand. It isn't as great a western as 3:10 to Yuma (The original, not the awful remake), High Noon or Shane. But if you like Westerns, you almost certainly will like The Violent Men. I did. If you've never seen a Glenn Ford Western, you really should check one out. 3:10 to Yuma is a great movie, but it's not a typical Glenn Ford Western. If not The Violent Men, then I'd suggest Jubal, Cimarron or The Sheepman, which are wonderful Westerns, better than The Violent Men. Maybe once you're done with those, or if you've already seen those, then you can try The Violent Men. And I'm mostly looking to talk about those movies that you may not have noticed. It's pretty good. Not great. But still pretty darn good. Simple. Honest. Fun.

JLRVancouver Glen Ford and Edward G. Robinson square off to decide the fate of the valley: one big cattle outfit or a bunch of small ranches and farmers. Pretty standard stuff, with Robinson giving the usual 'I built this valley with my own two hands' speech, nevertheless, "The Violent Men" manages to breath some new life into the old tropes. Ford is good as Parrish, the ex-officer forced to fight a range-war that he had been avoiding, as is Robinson, as Parrish's nemesis Wilkison, a rancher crippled in an earlier fight who needs to prove that he is still the alpha-bull in the herd. Kicking the hive is Wilkison's cold-hearted, conniving wife (Barbera Stanwyck at her 'bitch best')) and his murderous brother Cole (Brian Keith), who have their own agenda. The cinematography is excellent, with expansive mountain scenery and wide-angle action shots of riders, cattle, etc (albeit some lifted from earlier films). For a '50s western, the film has a surprisingly hard, brutal edge as Robinson's hired killers face off with Parrish's army of ranch-hands and sodbusters. It is refreshing to see a little more realism in the gun-play than is usual for the genre: the first 'gun-fight' is at very close range and in the final showdown Parrish actually sights down the barrel his Colt before pulling the trigger. All in all, an above-average '50's Western.

michaelryerson10 I'm in the minority here. Reading these other reviews, I can't believe we've seen the same movie. Let's see, the good: The Tetons, Anchor Ranch exteriors, uh...Glenn Ford riding a horse (although even this gets a bit tiresome), Edward G. Robinson doing pretty much anything. Now the bad: everything else. The women flounce, b**ch and moan, the men spill testosterone all over the place, the dialogue borders on parody. Stanwyck's character is such a cliché as to be distracting, someone apparently told Brian Keith to play Cole 'like a snake' and he couldn't have taken it to a greater extreme if he'd gotten down on the floor and slithered out the door. Glenn Ford is supported by stalwart former soldiers, the Anchor gang is exclusively faceless cowhand/gunslingers, the women (other than Stanwyck) are of little consequence, they deliver their lines and exit stage right (or left) reappearing to again deliver a predictable line or two, or maybe to shoot the fleeing (on foot!) evil Stanwyck as a favor to the director who apparently couldn't think of a plausible endgame. The characters are consistently unironic, unself-aware and little bothered by nuance. I gave it a four mostly because of the mountains. (I checked 'contains spoiler' because I didn't want to end up on some evil list but, frankly, spoiling this film for you would be a favor)

classicsoncall It's always interesting to catch a line in a film that winds up being somewhat prophetic for the future of an actor. In this case, I was intrigued by Edward G. Robinson's statement to Barbara Stanwyck - "I promised you the Valley", as he discusses the lone hold outs to his attempt to control all the land in Logasa. Ten years later, Stanwyck would star as the matriarch of the Barkley Family on "The Big Valley". Somehow I thought she might have looked older in the earlier picture; I guess all those bright gowns and fancy riding outfits have a way of bringing out one's youthful side.As for my summary line above, that's Lee Wilkison's appraisal of John Parrish (Glenn Ford), one of those hold outs mentioned earlier, shortly after Parrish uses his knowledge of military tactics to take out a number of Wilkison hands after they raid his ranch and torch his home. I liked the way the film explored his character, starting with the way he dealt with foreman Wade Matlock (Richard Jaeckel) in a calculated showdown. The set up for the ambush was also a clever maneuver, diametrically opposed to the strategy of rushing the bad guys head on with both sides fighting it out to the last man standing. For that, Parrish also had something to say - "Never meet the enemy on his terms"."The Violent Men" is a good title for this film, and was probably at the head of it's class in the mid 1950's, though by today's standards doesn't come close to the blood letting one will find in a "Tombstone" or "Open Range", where the bullets exact a nasty savagery. But it's shaped by fine performances from the principals, with a sub plot exploring infidelity that seemed almost ironic considering it was Stanwyck's character who was cheating.