Touches You

Powerful

I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

As Good As It Gets

Tyrone Power, Susan Hayward and Hugh Marlowe top the cast here, but the one character you'll remember is the creepy outlaw Tevis, scarily portrayed by Jack Elam. At a certain point in his career Elam developed that wild bug-eyed look that was on prominent display here. In fact his first appearance in this film was played to the hilt with his face filling the screen looking like it might have been shot with a fish-eye lens. The only thing missing was the hook in his mouth.The story winds up being a taut little Western thriller with tension building as the outlaw bunch led by Rafe Zimmerman (Hugh Marlowe) comes close to completing their mission of robbing a stagecoach full of gold. At that point, Rawhide station caretaker in training Tom Owens (Power) becomes expendable, and the lives of Vinnie Holt (Hayward) and her niece Callie are thrown in doubt; outlaw Tevis had already dispatched station agent Sam Todd (Edgar Buchanan) without much provocation.But come on, when you saw Tom and Vinnie scrape away at that hole in the wall, didn't you just figure that toddler Callie would eventually find a way to crawl through it? What wasn't a given was what happened next. Proving just what a low life he was, Tevis takes pot shots at the kid in order to force Tom to give up his gun. This after he'd already taken out his boss Zim and partner Gratz (George Tobias) in a maniacally unexpected turn. It would have been helpful to know how this outlaw bunch came together in the first place but that was kind of glossed over by Zimmerman earlier. He should have been a better judge of character.There's a 1938 Western also titled "Rawhide" which might prove of interest to baseball fans as well, it has New York Yankees slugger Lou Gherig in the lead role! And if you're interested in catching Jack Elam when he actually was a pretty good looking guy, you might try the 1949 exploitation flick titled "Wild Weed". Different genre, but he was a gangster in that one too.

If this weren't a Western it would be a film noir. Four escaped gangsters of diverse character take over an isolated stage stop and hold Tyrone Power and Susan Hayward hostage while they wait to hold up the next gold-bearing stagecoach. The gangsters include Hugh Marlowe, Zimmerman, a man of good breeding who went bad; Jack Elam, a slob whose mind is less on gold than on Susan Hayward's blouse; Dean Jagger as a scruffy but good-natured horse thief; and poor George Tobias, reduced from prominent supporting parts during the war years to a humble goon of uncertain nationality ("Gratz") whose lines are limited almost exclusively to, "Ya, Zim." It's a hostage movie along the lines of "Dog Day Afternoon", "The Negotiator", or "Split Second." Instead of a stagecoach stop it could be a bank or a post office waiting for the million-dollar payroll shipment to arrive. Much of it is shot at night. Shadows play across the walls. The air reeks of hazard.But there are two magnetic characters among the dust and sagebrush: Jack Elam and the little girl.Elam is unforgettable, no matter what tripe he's in. You'll probably recognize him if you've seen many movies from the 50s. He's skinny, ugly, and looks as if his first bath was his last. His jaw, the angle of his ascending ramus, is so full of right angles that it seems his face was designed by an engineer with a T-square, probably drunk at the time. There are little gaps between each tooth, suggesting a simian ancestry. His grin is both horrible and horrifying.The other character is a little girl, a toddler, with a cute face. But children are always a nuisance and this one is no exception. She's nothing but trouble, waddling about on stumpy, widespread legs where she shouldn't be, scaring the mules, crying at the wrong time so as to alert the miscreants, exposing herself to gun fire when she should be ducking for cover. There is only one way to keep toddlers in check, and that's to beat them senseless when they cry. It certainly worked with my son. He hasn't spoken to me in twenty years. Not even a post card. And I understand he's doing quite well with his mime act.But enough about this noir Western. It's tense, as almost all hostage movies are. The directors and performers turn in seasoned performances, except for that nettlesome little kid. I sort of get a kick out of it when it's on.

Fox's RAWHIDE (1951) is quite a wonderful film! Elusive and available for years only on a VHS tape the powers that be at Fox, in their wisdom - bless their little hearts, have seen fit at last to put it out on DVD in a small box set with two other western classics - "The Gunfighter" (1950) and "Garden Of Evil" (1954).Tyrone Power - making one of his rare forays into a western - stars with the beautiful Susan Hayward in "Rawhide" which is essentially a film noir in a western setting. The story set in a remote and isolated Stagecoach relay station has its occupants (Power and Hayward) being held hostage by a gang of outlaws intent on robbing the gold bullion when it arrives on the morning stage. The movie recounts the efforts of the captives to escape their captors and thwart their plans.From a splendidly written screenplay by Dudley Nichols the film has a palpable dramatic thrust to it which it maintains throughout. Sharply photographed in glorious black & white by Milton Krasner this is edge of the seat stuff thanks to Henry Hathaway's seamless direction, the atmospheric music by Sol Kaplin and of course the excellent performances of the individual cast members. Tyrone Power and Susan Hayward are terrific in the leads and make a perfect match. Their scenes together are altogether appealing and engaging. Four years later they would be cast together again in the Fox colourful epic set in South Africa "Untamed". Outstanding also is Hugh Marlowe as Zimmerman the "educated" leader of the gang, the wonderful gravelly voiced Edgar Buccanan as Sam the ill-fated station boss, Dean Jagger as Yancy the quite harmless gang member laughingly referred to as "the one horse, horse thief", and making his debut Jack Elam (replacing Everett Sloane) as the unscrupulous, violent and womanizing gunman Tevis ( his wickedness being well displayed in a startling jaw-dropping scene towards the end when he snarlingly takes pot-shots at a baby toddler).Listen out too for Gary Merill (uncredited) doing the narration over the opening and closing scenes ("Yes sir, they call it the Jackass Mail"). The following year Fox took the picture's basic premise and turned it into a movie called "Outcasts Of Poker Flat" starring Dale Robertson and Ann Baxter but it had little success. Pity Fox didn't include it here to allow for comparison. However as it stands it is an excellent thriller of a western! Bullseye Fox!Classic line from "Rawhide"............. Ty Power asking Hayward why she is locking the door of her room and is it because she's afraid of coyotes? Hayward wryly replies - "Yeah, the kind with boots on".

i thought this was a pretty good western.it contains most of the elements western contain,stagecoaches,robbers,and gunfights.and,there is the beautiful woman(Susan Hayward)and the man(Tyrone power)she is unwittingly thrown together with in a fight to survive.there is not a lot of action,in this particular western,but that's OK.the dramatic parts are well done,and the acting is very good.Power and Hayward acquit themselves quite well do quite well here,but Hugh Marlowe is really good as the chief Villain.Dean Jagger,Jack Elam and George Tobias also play villains with Jack Elam very strong here.there is some great chemistry/tension between Power and Hayward.as most western go this one follows the formula,so it's fairly easy to predict how thing will go.i will say,though,that the ending went a bit different than i had expected.overall,an enjoyable 86 minutes or so