Karry
Best movie of this year hands down!
Pluskylang
Great Film overall
Logan
By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.
Shawn Spencer
Pursued is a soap opera in Western clothing -- it is NOT a film noir. The plot is choppy, slow and has major holes. If you don't like the characters attitudes, just wait five minutes -- they'll change...and change again and again...I'm a big fan of Robert Mitchum, but this was not his best performance. He has no chemistry with Teresa Wright. Dean Jagger plays a thoroughly hateful villain, though.The cinematography and the beautiful desert rock formations were worth two extra stars...
MartinHafer
Considering that the film stars Robert Mitchum AND is not just another recycled plot, I am willing to cut it some slack since the story itself seems a bit hard to believe....no, it's VERY hard to believe. Because 95% of all westerns have one of about five basic plots (maybe even four), the 5% that are NOT are gems. So the fact that this film is NOT about uppity Indians, nasty bosses determined to chase farmers/sheep herders/the little guy off their land, trying to bring a guy to justice despite the town not willing to get involved, it's well worth seeing.The film begins with a young boy being raised by a woman and her kid after the boy lost his family. Exactly how is not revealed until the end, but having the grown boy (Mitchum) 'suddenly' remember what happened when he was a kid and how the family was killed was annoying--since life doesn't work that way. The rest of the intervening story is a series of run-ins with his foster-mother's extended family--they want to kill the boy as 'he's no good' and again and again the guy is forced to kill to defend himself. Each time he kills, it proves to this family he's bad--but THEY are the ones constantly trying to kill him! See the film to see more about why and in the process see some darn good acting. In addition to Mitchum (who's always great), I liked Dean Jagger--he played a despicable guy very well. Well worth seeing.
JohnWelles
Pursued (1947), a noir Western directed by the great Raoul Walsh and stars Robert Mitchum, Teresa Wright and Judith Anderson.The plot is simple enough: Set in New Mexico (and shot there too) around the turn of the century and told in flashback, the film tells the story of Jeb Rand (Robert Mitchum) whose family was murdered when he was a small boy. The sight of this haunts him, which manifests itself in bad dreams, into adulthood, as he is brought up by Mrs. Callum (Judith Anderson) and her two children, including Thor (Teresa Wright), whom he falls in love with. When the killers (led by the effectively cool Dean Jagger) discover that he exists and the only Rand left, they vow to kill him too. But Rand also has other problems to sort out, especially his jealous half-brother Adam Callum (John Rodney).The photography, by the esteemed James Wong Howe is breathtaking, all harsh black-and-white vistas; the editing too, by Christian Nyby (who would later go on to take credit for directing the classic science fiction film The Thing from Another World! [1951]) is above average, and the music by Max Steiner is up to the same high standard of the of his other classic scores. The direction is brilliantly handled by Walsh and the screenplay by Niven Busch throws up more than a few surprises. Robert Mitchum is his usual laconic self (which is no bad thing!), Judith Anderson as always is excellent, Teresa Wright is good as Mitchum's half-sister and love and Dean Jagger, Alan Hale and Harry Carey Jr. all turn in memorable performances. The film itself has been influential, being homage in Sergio Leone's Once Upon a Time in the West and Martin Scorsese has talked about his great admiration for it. This was also, tragically, the last movie "The Doors" singer Jim Morrison watched before he did on July 3, 1971. Pursued is an extremely good Western noir that deserves to be much more well known than it is and I strongly urge fans of either Westerns or noir's to see it.
jeromec-2
Before tonight, I'd never seen this underrated western. It is a complex morality play as well as being a film noir. The film begins with a young boy (Jeb Rand) being rescued from a house destroyed.He becomes part of the family, sort of headed by Ma Callum (wonderfully maternal by the skilled Judith Anderson). He is well loved by this woman, and should have grown up a normal hard working individual if she'd had her way, much like his stepbrother Adam (John Rodney). To all outward appearances, he did. He universally accepts his fate when he loses a coin toss. As the loser, he goes to a war he has neither interest in or understanding of. He comes back a hero. The ranch has been very profitable and the girl he left behind loves him and wants to marry him.Again, everything seems good.The tranquility is only on the surface, held together by the love of the mother matriarch. The natural son is insanely jealous of the adopted son. We never really find out why, nor does it matter. All the courtesy and soft-spoken talk is all veneer. Everyone has twisted emotions except Jeb (Robert Michum), who has problems, which he never denies, nor does he easily relate his problems.After two very ugly killings, Thor (Teresa Wright) hatches a plot. She consents to being courted and married.There is revenge in her heart. She is not the naive girl who wants the three of them to live together guided her mother's love and powerful moral upbringing. Thor is consumed by a Gothic kind of hatred. The hatred is so deeply ingrained that the mother, herself filled with a disappointed and mourning hatred, cannot stand to watch what the Thor has planned: she wants to kill Michum just as he thinks he has everything.Michum persists, but not stupidly. He confronts her hatred. Incredible as it may seem, he forces her to back away from killing him and to let her love surface in its place, which he knows is there.That is the complex characterization of the first half of the movie. The second part has to do with the Callum gang (headed by Grant – played by an amazingly sinister Dean Jagger) that tries to kill Michum on his wedding night at the old Rand ranch.The rest of the movie is all gun shooting and melodrama, which I won't reveal more about.The photography is astonishing with its shadows and light, which is like choreography. Wright is like a salad with ingredients that don't look they should go together but do. She is an underrated actress who must convey complex emotions, which not only contradict one another, but also are sometimes also false. It is to her credit that she does this easily. She is as Michum says, quite beautiful from a small distance. Close ups reveal how consumed she is in her depravity. If you don't believe this, watch her in the pride the Yankees. Close ups or shots taken from a distance show the same thing: a radiant vibrant woman transparently in love. This movie shows quite different side.I can't quite bring myself to give this a 10, because the plot suffers the same way all morality plays do. Let us say it is an interesting eight with subtleties that make it very engaging.An interesting 8 (out of 10).
