Alan Dwan's Silver Lode, from 1954, is a good B Western. The film, like that year's Johnny Guitar, is a cautionary allegory about McCarthyism. The villain is not too subtly monikered "McCarty". Four self-proclaimed lawmen ride into the town and accuse a solid citizen of perfidy. The town, done up in red, white, and blue bunting for a Fourth of July celebration, soon descends into paranoia, distrust, and violence. A host of familiar players are in the cast: John Payne, Lizabeth Scott, Dolores Moran, Emile Meyer, Alan Hale Jr., Harry Carey Jr. The acting laurels go to Dan Duryea for his usual masterful portrayal of anguine cunning. Dwan, at this stage of his long career, was an expert at cranking out taut B pictures. He groups his players (as above) most often in the efficient American shot. When appropriate, he was still capable of bravura effects: a long tracking through town capturing an extended gunfight brilliantly evokes a community's descent into madness.
Silver Lode
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
-
Zoey Deutch and Mark Rylance in The Outfit Graham Moore's The Outfit limits its parameters to one set, the store of a bespoke tailor in...
-
1946 - 2025 Sex is a doorway to something so powerful and mystical, but movies depict it in a completely flat wa...
-
Jeon Jong-seo I had very low expectations for Chun-Hyun Lee's Ballerina , an offshoot/ripoff of the John Wick films, but was pleasantly ...
-
Marie Ney has the advantage over Robert Newton and Charles Laughton in Jamaica Inn Alfred Hitchcock's Jamaica Inn , from 1939, is o...
-
An unusually quiet Timothy Carey listens as Tim McIntire rants James B. Harris' Fast-Walking , from 1982, is a seamy prison picture tha...
No comments:
Post a Comment