Evengyny Thanks for the memories!

SpunkySelfTwitter It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

Portia Hilton Blistering performances.

Deanna There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

LeonLouisRicci The Religious Allegories, both Subtle and Overt, are everywhere in this Gary Cooper Western Swan Song. There are references to Snakes, Seeing the Light, the Hanging Tree might as well be from the Garden of Eden, and so on. The Final Scenes after Gold is Discovered, could be something out of Cecil B. Demille.Maria Schell as the Angelic, Sojourner is Superb with a Soulful Performance. It's the Film Debut for George C. Scott as a Fundamentalist that thinks Doctors are Demons sent from Hell. Karl Malden is the Good Doctor's Antagonist and Plays the Lecherous Villain for all its worth.Christian Hypocrisy is in Full View in front of the Wide Open but Confined Landscape of the Gold Mining Town and is used Effectively by the Director. Max Steiner's Score is subtly Effective. Filmed in Color but Forgoes Cinemascope with a more Claustrophobic 3x4 giving it a Trapped or Enclosed Feel.The Characterizations are Sharp and it's more Dramatic than most Westerns, concerned with lessons in Morality and Human Flaws rather than Riding, Roping, Fisticuffs, and Gunplay. A slightly Offbeat and little known Western that is Better than Average, but Never quite Attains Greatness or Classic Status.Note...Country Western stalwart Marty Robbins sings the Title Song...Nominated for an Oscar.

Barbara Henderson An excellent cast tells an excellent story. Gary Cooper is a doctor with a past, afraid to face the future. He portrays himself as a very hard man, yet he gives aid to people in distress. Carl Malden is so creepy in his role you may never see him in another movie without thinking of him in this role. It captures the idea of the power gold can have over people. There is romance, but it is more a story of people finding themselves as they search for a new and better life. I have watched all of Gary Cooper's movies. This is one of his finest. Don't miss it.Music by Marty Robbins is an added bonus.

dougdoepke No need to recap the sprawling plot.For a western, the movie is generously produced. The Washington state locations are scenic as heck and a great backdrop to the rushing crowds and boisterous miners. In fact, the gold camp recreation is one of the most realistic I've seen. Then too, the production has one of the most underrated directors of westerns of the period, Delmer Daves, whose list includes such classics as 3:10 to Yuma (1957), Jubal (1956),and the generally overlooked Cowboy (1958). All of these are tightly written and efficiently directed little gems.But I have to say that despite the first-rate production values and a first-rate cast, this more epic sized western doesn't achieve the impact of Daves' smaller movies. The problem is a loose script and a dawdling camera that stretches out the dramatics and the movie's length to a sometimes tedious degree. I'm guessing that Warner Bros. wanted a production equal to Gary Cooper's iconic standing. I suspect they were also promoting newcomer Schell's career, and thus much time is split between her, Cooper, and the always reliable Malden. All perform well, but add up to bits and pieces that don't fit together very well, while padding the screen time unnecessarily.I wish Scott's truly fearsome religious zealot had gotten a bigger role. He might have made the movie memorable, so strong is his spotty presence. Something I don't usually notice in films is the movie score. But here the music is blended nicely into the screenplay, without overdoing it. Perhaps revealingly, this is Daves' final western. From here, he went on to teenage fare, such as the blockbuster A Summer Place (1959) that despite its teen angst of the day is not without notable compensations. Anyway, this film's a scenic delight at the same time the narrative unfortunately is not, which adds up to a very mixed result.

Spikeopath The Hanging Tree is directed by Delmer Daves and adapted to screenplay by Wendell Mayes and Halsted Welles from a story written by Dorothy M. Johnson. It stars Gary Cooper, Maria Schell, Karl Malden, Ben Piazza and George C. Scott. A Technicolor production, film was shot on location at the Oak Creek Wildlife Area, Yakima, Washington, with Ted D. McCord on cinematography duties, and Max Steiner scores the music.The Gold Trail, Montana 1878. Joseph Frail (Cooper), Doctor, Gambler and Gunslinger, arrives in the Gold mining town of Skull Creek looking to settle down and make a living. However, his past haunts him and after medically aiding Rune (Piazza) and Elizabeth Mahler (Schell), subsequently changing their lives, Frail finds this town and its people are less than enamoured with his presence.Slow but compelling, The Hanging Tree has a unique feel to it on account of its interesting location setting, the Gold Rush backdrop and the multi stranded characters that form the story. Not given much support at the box office on its release, it's a film that has gained a cult following over the years and it's now often referred to as an intelligent Western. The performances are smart, from a very good cast, and the story manages to steer away from conventional Western movie pitfalls. But what marks it out as a must see for Western fans is the work of Daves (and Malden who stepped in while the director was hospitalised with ulcers), where the expansive scenery is utilised for both authentic impact on the narrative, and also for the emotional conditioning of the characters.Personally I think it falls some way short of the great intelligent and psychological Westerns crafted by Boetticher and Mann. Yes there are complexities to the characters, but the script doesn't quite dig deep enough into them, which is particularly galling as regards Cooper's portrayal of Frail (an appropriate name given Coop's ailing health at the time). It's credit to Cooper that he still manages to bring the viewer into his pained world, helping to make the impact of the finale far better than it had any right to be if taken as written on the page. But it still rounds out as a thoroughly absorbing picture, one that's beautifully shot and scored with gusto by Steiner. Lovely hummable title song from Marty Robbins as well. 7/10