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Review: Gary Cooper, in a performance that deservedly won him an Oscar, plays Will Kane, a sheriff who just got married and retired from being the sheriff, only to find out that a gunslinger he put in jail is on his way to get his revenge. Does he try to leave with his new bride, Grace Kelly, and seek peaceful anonymity elsewhere? Does he make a stand against a ruthless killer who belongs back behind bars? The town believes in Kane and wants him to stay and face the gunslinger, but they will do nothing to help. They want to look away and pretend this unpleasantness doesn't exist, while Kane stands alone to eradicate the problem or die. In a tough-decision situation if there ever was one, Kane takes action. The movie moves in real time (an 84-minute movie covers 80 minutes of Kane's life), which was innovative and avant-garde then, and is still uncommon. Cooper plays the sheriff as only he could: stoic, moral, stubborn, righteous, stalwart. Watching this move is like reading "Of Mice and Men" by John Steinbeck: absolutely nothing is wasted, everything is loaded with meaning, and you'd better not blink. This is the quintessential classic Western, with "The Shootist" being the perfect end-of-the-Old-West movie, and "Quigley Down Under" being a prime non-Western Western. Film-making craftmanship at its finest! |
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