BeSummers
Funny, strange, confrontational and subversive, this is one of the most interesting experiences you'll have at the cinema this year.
InformationRap
This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.
Humbersi
The first must-see film of the year.
Robert J. Maxwell
In this Western, Robert Taylor as Jake Wade is the alpha male and wardrobe has dressed him in midnight blue from head to toe except for the silver bullets in his gun belt that function as a kind of accessory. There was a time when Taylor and Richard Widmark rode on the wild side together. Widmark managed to break Taylor out of jail. Now Taylor has ridden miles to do the same for his former friend. After their escape, before they split up, Widmark wears an oily smile. He doesn't seem particularly grateful for what Taylor has done. In fact, the narcissistic Widmark demands to know what Taylor did with the loot from their last robbery. "I buried it somewhere and there it stays." Widmark genially asks Taylor for a gun so he can kill him on the spot. No dice. Throughout, Widmark gives a better performance than the ligneous Robert Taylor, whose default expression is a scowl, but that's not saying much.Taylor rides off by himself and returns to the town where he removes his dark blue pea coat and reveals a dark blue shirt sporting another accessory, the silver badge of a marshal -- or maybe it's a sheriff's badge. I get the two titles mixed up because it never makes any difference which is the correct one anyway. A heterosexual, Taylor has a fiancée in town, the beguiling Patricia Owens, a red head with pupils like big black glistening olives. Over dinner, which is barely touched, as usual in these stories, they have an argument. Taylor wants to get married, pull up stakes, and move farther West, no doubt thinking about that smirk on Widmark's face. Owens sensibly asks why but of course he can't tell her without revealing his miscreant past.Things go from bad to worse. Widmark and half a dozen compañeros show up in town and kidnap Taylor and Owens with the objective of forcing Taylor to take them to the place where the stolen stash is buried. There follows a long journey through forests, over mountains, through what appears to be Zabriskie Point in Death Valley, to the ghost town where the treasure is. There are snide remarks from Henry Silva and some of the other goons about Owens' figure but Widmark is thinking only of pelf, after the acquisition of which he intends to slaughter Taylor and do God knows what with Owens. Of course, Taylor makes some plucky escape attempts but they only prove to be brief delays. Nice atmospheric shooting during some of these scenes. Death Valley is nonpareil. The ragged hills are tinted with lavender. On a chilly September night in Death Valley I stopped the car next to a sidewinder (Crotalus cerastes) who was curled up on the slightly warmer black pavement. He was sluggish enough for me to pick him up by the tail, whirl him over my head, and fling him off into the sand and out of danger.When they finally reach the ghost town, it's beautifully bleachly dilapidated -- only a handful of empty weathered buildings and outhouses, a leaning water tower, a neglected cemetery, disarticulated wagons and other artifacts, and a main street with scattered creosote bush. It's the kind of setting that a child would be delighted to explore. The child probably wouldn't like the fact that the place is surrounded by hostile Indians. The Indians stage an attack that was pretty brutal for its time, but they are finally driven away and all the thugs expect Widmark are killed by arrows. This leave Taylor and Widmark for the final shoot out on the desolate street. Guess who wins. Widmark wins! He ravages the girl, desecrates Taylor's body, ties it behind his chariot, and races around the walls of Troy.
jhkp
The almost too pretty Robert Taylor of the mid-1930's was, by the late 1950's, angular, sharp-eyed; his dark widow's peak bisecting his forehead like a knife. He's perfect for his role and stands out against the scenery that might engulf a lesser presence. His snarling mouth spitting out bitter words is unforgettable.By contrast, Richard Widmark, always intelligent and interesting, but rarely stoic, is a theatrically interesting bad guy. Just as Taylor looks great in his dark colors and shadows, Widmark looks correct, with his blond hair, in his lighter clothes, and his performance is somewhat lighter than the average villain performance, just as Taylor's hero is darker than usual. These differences make for an enjoyable contrast.At this time, with censorship becoming somewhat more relaxed, some screen westerns were becoming more dark and violent. This darkness and violence was presented in a matter-of-fact, almost dry way. Not a big, exciting western, but a nice, serious, violent little story, filmed against some enthralling backdrops, well acted and directed.In 1958, when this film was produced/released, there was a musician's strike in Hollywood. Several prominent films were released without original scores, or a composer credit, including this one, and the meandering, canned score doesn't do much for the dramatics.
JohnHowardReid
When "Bad Day at Black Rock" was released back in 1955, director John Sturges was hailed as the master of Cinema-Scope suspense. Despite a somewhat unconvincing climax (mostly caused by Spencer Tracy's refusal to spend any more time on location, which meant that the scene had to be shot on a studio sound stage), the film was hailed by all as a gem of jeopardy. Certainly Millard Kaufman's taut script and a fine array of support players led by Lee Marvin and Ernest Borgnine helped. Some critics feel that Sturges' abilities gradually declined after this and that he never topped "Bad Day...", but to me "The Law and Jake Wade" proves these suspicions wrong. How brilliantly Sturges uses CinemaScope here to obtain his effects! The very landscapes (and there are a great many of them, thanks to extensive location shooting) seem not only hostile and threatening, but they are made to close in on our protagonists like a prison. The few interiors reinforce this motif. Prison cells and the eerie, cramped quarters of a ghost town are relieved by just one dinner-table scene, which is the only sequence in the movie which doesn't quite succeed. (An ill-judged, distorted close-up of Robert Taylor doesn't help).Perhaps most of the instant-information dialogue in the earlier scenes is a bit too obviously pat, but otherwise the William Bowers script is not only tautly exciting, but offers excellent opportunities to support players like Middleton, Silva and Kelley. In the flashier star role, Richard Widmark pulls out all stops to impress, but I found the less flamboyant, more subtly skilled acting of Robert Taylor more appealing. It's difficult to maintain sympathy as the good guy when you're on the receiving end all the time and your opponent has all the snappy dialogue, but Taylor comes through this ordeal with flying colors. And the writer does relent at the end when he hands Taylor a neat rejoinder to Widmark's aggrieved protest, "I was going to hand you your gun!" Taylor replies: "But then you always liked me much more than I liked you!"
alexandre michel liberman (tmwest)
No question that the end is important to a film but also it takes only a couple of minutes. The last scenes of Jake Wade are too conventional and not in the same level . John Sturges is here at his best with a story full of surprises and with the excellent Richard Widmark . Robert Taylor is Jake Wade, a man driven by guilty feelings. Guilt can lead you to crazy acts and that is what Jake does when he saves Clint (Widmark) from being hanged. Instead of being grateful Clint and his gang kidnap Jake and his girlfriend Peggy (Patricia Owens) and will kill him after he shows them where he hid the money. If Jake would escape from that, would his conscience make him give Clint another chance? Would he make the same mistake he made before? Jake has troubled feelings because Clint had saved him from being hanged in the past. His guilt and sense of fair play will determine his actions.
