Dir: John Sturges | US Western 78′
John Sturges of The Great Escape fame started life as an editor before Harry Cohn, president of Columbia, offered him a job after the war when the studio made cheap pictures appealing to distributors. Sturges’ final film there was this high quality western made in Death Valley where the mercury was touching 49 degrees.
An intrepid search for gold – purportedly buried in a waggon – kicks off on the Mexican border where the shifting sands sparkle in Charles Lawton Jr’s chiaroscuro cinematography. The bounty hunters are Randolph Scott, William Bishop, Jerome Courtland and Ella Raines and their turbulent travails are accompanied by the dulcet strains of crooner Josh White’s guitar. Such was the heat that the sweat evaporated from the actors’ bodies so Sturges was obliged to adorn them in grease and glycerine to mimic it. @MeredithTaylor
LOCARNO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL | RETROSPECTIVE 2024