Monday, October 11, 2010

The Ox-Bow Incident

A rancher has been killed and his cattle stolen. A posse turns into a lynchmob. Directed by William A. Wellman and also starring Dana Andrews and Anthony Quinn.

This is an interesting film. Most of the outdoor scenes are obviously filmed in a studio. It gives the film a theatrical quality. Actually, the film is more like some leftwing drama, with speeches and everything, the cowboys suddenly a lot more eloquent than they should have been. Henry Fonda plays a voice of reason, a part close to the one he later played in 12 Angry Men, but this film is bleaker, and must have been very unusual in 1942, right in the middle of WW 2. It could be seen as an attack on what happened in America at the time, like the internment of the Japanese Americans, and the film certainly hasn't lost any actuality after 9/11.

No comments:

Post a Comment