Pretty Good

People are voting emotionally.

Best movie of this year hands down!

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

Not a terribly deep western, but a satisfying one that makes some decent social commentary. Unfortunately, this is a VistaVision film, but the copy I saw was in Academy ratio. So I can't comment too much on the cinematography... I'll just say I didn't see anything there that hinted at greatness. I'm not the world's biggest Cagney fan, however I liked his performance here as a man of upstanding integrity. This might also be the film's biggest weakness, the protagonist is a little too perfect. But he's a hero that's enjoyable to watch interact with those around him, especially those of lesser character. The supporting roles by John Derek and Viveca Lindfors are unremarkable but solid. The movie keeps things moving at a steady pace, maybe too steady but quite watchable. There are a couple of interesting surprises as well. There are certainly better westerns out there, but you could do a whole lot worse.

Run for Cover (1955)The first reason to see this is the simple fact it's a Nicholas Ray movie. Ray didn't direct many movies, but among those few are some of the best--or at least my favorites--in the whole history of Hollywood. "They Live by Night" and "In a Lonely Place" are moving and interesting masterpieces, and "Johnny Guitar" is completely bizarre and original and a wild ride. Only slightly less interesting to me but more iconic is "Rebel without a Cause," made the same year as this one."Run for Cover" is an awkward fit, a Western by a director of mostly urban dramas. James Cagney isn't really cast wrong, per se, because he's presented as an outsider in this typical rough frontier town, but he comes off a little superficial, using his razor fast approach as an end rather than a means. And I think this is because the story is weak. It sounds good on paper, but it unfolds a little obviously, with some filler and some seemingly requisite but boring views of beautiful landscapes. There are gunfights, a run-in with Indians, and deception. It's a story without emotional subtlety and Ray is best a peeling back layers in human interaction, not just showing the action.Even the interesting Viveca Lindfors (who originally led me to the movie after seeing her in "Backfire," is oddly stiff, doubly odd because she's a Swedish immigrant playing a Swedish immigrant. You get the feeling she was never a poor farmer back home.I don't mean to pile on criticisms, but it's worth saying that the direction isn't good, either. The filming is dull, there are a couple of odd moments like when a big log suddenly appears in the river to save someone, and sometimes the cuts don't match one to the next. I'm guessing there's a deeper story to the awkwardness here, but all we have is the awkwardness.Not that it's a disaster. I watched the whole thing, and the key theme of being honorable even when being misunderstood is good. And a really nasty deception (or plain old ingratitude) is pulled off right before our eyes, more than once.. The filming location seems to be Colorado rather than California or Arizona (as many Westerns are), and that gives it a different feel. And there is a short section (out of nowhere) shot in an ancient Indian ruin in New Mexico, with good atmospherics. Plug your ears to some of the overdone music, and let the plot ride off a little on its own and there's a good chance you'll like a lot of this movie.

If you've seen Jimmy Cagney in a few of his famous gangster roles, his appearance in a Western might be enough to make you scratch your head. I had that reaction the first time, when I caught him as a 'good' bad guy in "The Oklahoma Kid", opposite another actor you might peg the same way - Humphrey Bogart. That picture was filmed in 1939 and you had a much younger Cagney riding hell bent for leather and engaging in a wild saloon brawl with his co-star. Even so, he was forty years old at the time, while here, he's in his mid fifties and a bit slower on the draw as his character Matt Dow emphasizes a number of times. Cagney appears a bit more comfortable in his role here than he did as 'The Kid', in fact I did a few double takes as he resembled an older Audie Murphy a few times.The story has a couple of interesting turns, starting right out of the gate when Matt Dow hooks up with local cowpoke Davey Bishop, and they unwittingly fall into possession of a train payroll when two employees who have been robbed before under similar circumstances figure it would be easier to just give it up. Bishop is portrayed by John Derek, who I've seen in a few Westerns as well, and he too looks like he'd be more comfortable in a different type of film, say as an angst ridden youth or a slick motorcycle gang member. Although I did like him in "Fury at Showdown", another Western with a great brawl, maybe the best I've ever seen, if not the longest.While Bishop recovers from severe wounds received by the posse that hunted them down for the lost payroll, Cagney's character sparks up a romantic interest with the woman who nurses Bishop back to health. At first I wasn't sure if Helga Swenson (Viveca Lindfors) was using Matt to get to know Bishop better; she appeared a lot closer in age to the younger sidekick. I guess it could have been written either way, but this was Cagney's picture. It was clever the way Cagney's character got old man Swenson (Jean Hersholt) to allow Matt to earn his keep while Davey recovered. The old guy was pretty sharp though, he knew what Matt was doing the entire chess game before the subject of matrimony came up.The story got interesting with the robbery at the church service, leading to another twist in the story regarding Bishop's character. With greed winning out over his conscience, Bishop turns on his mentor, only to reverse himself in the finale. In a somewhat unusual ending, Matt comes through for the town folk once again, but at a price. You can see it coming, but it could have gone a couple of different ways, with the outcome another twist to your typical bad guy learning from his mistakes scenario.Here's something interesting about the casting for the picture - in Cagney's very first film, he portrayed a young hood who worked for a mobster played by Grant Withers. In this one, Withers is the outlaw who robbed the church goers. Funny how things go sometimes. The picture also offers a brief appearance by Ernest Borgnine, also as a bad guy taken out by Matt.The film was directed by Nicholas Ray, which helps explain some of the focus on John Derek's troubled character. For an even better Ray/Derek collaboration, you'll have to check out 1949's "Knock On Any Door", with Humphrey Bogart in the lead role. Derek portrays a young man with a criminal past who reaches the end of the line when he winds up killing a cop. For his part, Nicholas Ray marked the epitome of his directorial achievement with his epic story of teenage angst - "Rebel Without A Cause".

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.