Wonderful character development!

The greatest movie ever made..!

Perfectly adorable

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

Shane is a beautiful film and an unapologetic, old-fashioned Western. It has an innocence and sincerity that you can't really find in films today. If you're looking for a classic example of the Western genre, this is it.

Casting Alan Ladd in the role of the dark and brooding larger-than-life Shane was perhaps the single great misdeed of this film; depriving Shane of his sinister getup (his black habiliments a part of his shrouded mystery) and cladding him in buckskin was tragic. But there are plenty of other ouchers that detract from the genius and not-just-another-Western story crafted by Jack Schaefer.As commentator Chuck Rankin noted, "the major flaw of the motion picture lies in its inability to translate into a different medium the complex point of view and nostalgia upon which much of the novel depends for its strength."A theme of Shane may be standing up for one's beliefs in the face of bullies, but there is much more that the movie does not convey. The frontier as a testing ground for humanity, the coming of age pains of an individual but also of a nation in the face of the cattlemen/homesteader rivalry, and the role of individuals to society get lost in the greater focus of the fistfights and shootouts.The supporting crew is largely unsympathetic in comparison to its literary counterparts. "Joey" (Bob in the book) is charmless and bug-eyed as he whines "Shaiy-ne!" ad nauseum. Marion is shrill.Van Heflin is tolerable as Starrett. But it is Jack Palance as Wilson who positively steals the show, thus looming larger and more appealing in some ways than its slight-statured fair-haired hero.All in all, the movie is better than many in its genre, but only because of the elements of the novel it deigned to adapt. It could have been much, much better.

SHANE is an entirely visual and iconic example of the western genre that also standards as Alan Ladd's most famous role. The thing that makes this film is the direction from George Stevens, which is really something else. Stevens carefully crafts a film that looks a treat and his direction of the action sequences is second to none, making them some of the strongest of the genre. My only real complaint with this film is the incessant use of day-for-night filming; everything else is great.The story is one of those ones which has plenty of mileage in it. Alan Ladd plays a retired gunslinger who joins up with a group of settlers, including Van Heflin who is fine in support and bags a more interesting character than Ladd's. The settlers find themselves up against Emile Meyer as the cruel Ryker, and his various men including veteran genre star Ben Johnson and Jack Palance in a truly evil, star-making performance. Elisha Cook Jr. is here too, playing a tougher character than you'd expect.A lot of the material is told through the eyes of your typically annoying American kid, but thankfully he's not too grating and at least his heart is in the right place. There's plenty of suspense and drama to keep the tale moving, but it's the action which really hits home. The excellent climax is a given - and Eastwood would later reference it in UNFORGIVEN - but it's the bar-room brawl which is something else, one of the most powerful fist-fights I've seen on a film. Top stuff indeed.

One of my all time favorite westerns. Alan Ladd, Van Heflin, and Jack Palance give fine performances in this classic. Jean Arthur is the wife trying to save her husband and Elisha Cook, Jr., is the heroic but outgunned homesteader. Heflin is the righteous husband who has the courage, but not the fighting skills, to confront his enemies.Palance steals the show as the vicious hired killer. His confrontation with Cook is riveting as he humiliates and then shoots him down in the street mud. Palance's every move is sinister He is so evil that even the dog slinks away from him. Jack meets his end at the hands of Shane in an epic gun battle. Shane challenges, baits him into drawing, and shoots first. His commentary on the dead man is "He was fast." Shane then blasts the rest of that evil family who is about to ambush him. The movie ends as Shane, wounded, rides off into the twilight, and little Brandon de Wilde, who has witnessed the battle, calls after him wistfully to no avail.