Fairaher
The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.
Lidia Draper
Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.
Ella-May O'Brien
Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.
JohnHowardReid
Producer: Lamar Trotti. (Thanks to U.S. Department of the Interior and its National Parks Service for permission to film in Death Valley National Monument.) Copyright 21 December 1948 by 20th Century-Fox Film Corp. New York release at the Roxy: 1 February 1949. U.S. release: December 1948. U.K. release: 27 June 1949. Australian release: 12 May 1949. 8,819 feet. 98 minutes.SYNOPSIS: Six outlaws plan to rob an old prospector. Setting: an Arizona ghost town.COMMENT: Superbly photographed against some awesome and unusually striking natural locales, this western starts off on a high plane of excitement with lots of hard riding and running inserts, horses galloping thrillingly close to the camera (thanks, "Wild Bill" Wellman) and a spectacular stunt fall. Once the atmospherically derelict town of Yellow Sky is reached, however, the pace starts to flag - despite the appealing presence of Anne Baxter and the efforts of the support players. Peck's delivery is too slow, a fault compounded by the fact that his scenes seem overloaded with dialogue. Some of these scenes merely slow up the plot and require drastic trimming. Fortunately, Peck is a rough man in a fight and shows off to advantage in a rugged rough-and-tumble with Russell in which Wellman used no doubles.The climax restores one's faith in the action western and has some nice twists of plot.Widmark, as usual, is menacing enough as the heavy. Although James Barton is a too-garrulous old prospector, the other characters are tautly written and expertly played. (In fact "MASH" fans will probably be disappointed that Morgan's part is not lengthier and more in the foreground.)Wellman's deliberately-judged direction and MacDonald's stark black-and-white photography illumine this fascinating if small-scale and somewhat derivative western.P.S. Trotti and Burnett were given an award from the Writers Guild of America for the "Best Written American Western of 1949".
bsmith5552
"Yellow Sky" is an uneven black and White western that has the look and feel of a "film noire".A gang of outlaws headed by James "Stretch Dawson" and including gambler "Dude" (Richard Widmark), Bull Run (Robert Arthur), Lengthy (John Russell), Half Pint (Harry Morgan), Walrus (Charles Kemper) and Jed (Robert Adler), ride into a dusty town and rob the local bank. While fleeing the sheriff's posse, Jed is killed and the others head for the salt flats/desert.Against all odds, the group comes upon the ghost town, Yellow Sky. There they meet the feisty young "Mike" (a pistol packing Anne Baxter) and her Grampa (James Barton). Dude is the first to suspect that the pair are hiding something. He discovers a gold mine and with the others plans to steal the booty.Meanwhile the normally stern Stretch takes a liking to "Mike". He negotiates with Grampa to share the gold 50/50. However Dude and the others have no such plan to share the loot. Stretch too plans to double cross the old man. But when he sees Grampa talking with visiting Apaches and convincing them not to attack, he sees that the old timer plans to keep his part of the bargain and therefore he will keep his part.A showdown between Stretch and the others results in Dude and the others taking over. The others pin Stretch, "Mike" and Grampa in the old man's cabin.This film has all the trappings of a "Film Noire" complete with low light
B &W photography, many nighttime scenes, a dark murky landscape and a sort of "femme fatale" in the person of the "Mike" character. The biggest problem I have with this story is the cop out Hollywood ending. The film should have ended with the climatic shoot-out.Gregory Peck is as always, the stern leader of men which makes the ending of the movie a little hard to swallow. Widmark, who was just starting out makes the perfect double crossing oily villain. Anne Baxter in tight jeans and carrying a six shooter...what else is there to say.
HotToastyRag
Anyone who likes rooting for the cowboy in the black hat will want to rent Yellow Sky. Gregory Peck, fresh from his bad-boy role in Duel in the Sun, leads a gang of bank robbing, murdering outlaws. His second-in-command is Richard Widmark, and he's always fun to root for when he's bad! After the gang robs a bank, they have two choices: submit to the law, or try and ride their horses across the notoriously fatal salt flats, in hopes that there's a town on the other side. Miraculously, there is a town—but it's a ghost town, with Anne Baxter and her grandfather as the only occupants. Now, if I were her, and a bunch of salivating outlaws arrived in town, I might not shake my hips while wearing ridiculously tight jeans, and I might not repeatedly bend over to get water where the boys always hang out. Then again, if she avoided them altogether, she wouldn't get to flirt with Gregory Peck, late at night, alone in the barn, where no one is around to help her if she needs it. . . I didn't like her character's repeatedly stupid behavior, and that kind of dampened my enjoyment of the movie. Anne Baxter aside, there are a couple of exciting shoot outs, so if you like Peck, Widmark, or westerns in general, you can rent this one. It's not the best, but you could do a lot worse.
jazerbini
One of the great westerns of Gregory Peck in the 1940s when he also "Duel in the Sun" and "The Gunfighter" this almost in 1950. Three western exponents no doubt. "Duel in the Sun" was a film done much to stardom Jennifer Jones to raise the western name. But over the following years it is both. It is an exceptional film. But in the case of "Yellow Sky" very competently directed by William Wellman we have a pure western, exciting, honest. The black-and-white photograph only the values with outstanding play of shadows. Anne Baxter has a performance of the best. She could remain silent in the film all along that we would know exactly what she wanted to say. It was a wonderful actress. And the film dramatic load is intense. Richard Widmark a little outside the box hero who built later have a great performance as one of the bandits. And Gregory Peck is nothing less than the great actor we've come to see. A great movie that deserves to be reviewed as.
