Day of the Outlaw

DAY OF THE OUTLAW                     B+

USA  (92 mi)  1959  d:  André de Toth

You won't find much mercy anywhere in Wyoming.          
—Blaise Starrett (Robert Ryan)

A spared down, low budget, mercilessly bleak, Black and White American “B” western from the late 50’s, adapted from a Lee E. Wells novel, the last western made by this director known for his grim psychological dramas, this one defined by the tough as nails intractability of the lead characters, none of whom can stand up to the barren ruggedness of the natural outdoor landscape, which kicks human butt in this movie.  Shot on location in the Oregon Cascades during the winter, featuring the visibly identifiable Three Sisters Mountains as well as Mt. Bachelor, a lone peak that stands alone.  When one thinks of winter movies set in the snow, THE THING (1951) and again in (1982), DR. ZHIVAGO (1965), MCCABE & MRS. MILLER (1971), QUINTET (1979), THE SHINING (1980), FARGO (1996), THE SWEET HEREAFTER (1997), and WINTER SLEEPERS (1997) come to mind, most all shot in color, but this movie is set at the end of the road, where “the trail ends in this town. There's no place to go but back.”  Of course, in this film, back is not an option.  One must defy death. 

Taking place in a small isolated settlement of only twenty people in Wyoming, the ire of cattle rancher Blaise Starrett (Robert Ryan) is raised when farmers begin to place barbed wire fences around their property, which violates the original credo of the free and expansive American West.  This is no small disagreement, as men’s livelihoods are at stake, where everything depends on protecting what’s theirs, and if neither side backs down, something’s got to give.  Femme fatale Tina Louise as Helen Crane is married to one of those farmers, but as women are scarce in this neck of the woods, she’d been carrying on an affair with Starrett before she married her husband.  Yet when a shootout looms, she’s willing to throw herself at Starrett if it means he’ll spare her husband’s life.  Not so easy.  This is the West where men are used to having their way and not letting anyone interfere, especially a “pig-belly farmer.”  Just as a bottle is about to drop off a bar spelling the sign for the bullets to fly, they are quickly interrupted by a rag tag group of cutthroat outlaws who grab the men’s guns and immediately take over the town in a psychologically unsettling siege, completely shifting the balance of power. 

Led by Burl Ives as deserting Army Captain Jack Bruhn, carrying sacks of stolen gold, they are just ahead of the tracking cavalry but need to ride out the night in a safe and warm place, where Bruhn needs a bullet extracted from his chest, but despite his men’s preference for women and whisky, Bruhn tells the local folk to hide their liquor and protect their women, as both are hands off to his men, claiming he needs them all sober when they leave at dawn.  With his men itching to get what they want, knowing there’s a long ride ahead, they continually press the boundaries and tempt fate.  Bruhn always seems to magically appear just as his men are about to stray, bullying them into backing off.  But they do convince him that there’d be no harm if he’d allow a social dance with the town’s four women.  “We only want to borrow them - - we'll give them back.”  Diametrically opposite to the grace and sweep of most dance sequences, think of the opulence of Max Ophuls or the legendary grandeur of Visconti’s THE LEOPARD (1963), this one is painfully difficult to watch, as the endless barroom piano music never ceases, growing more and more physically aggressive as the men try to catch a kiss as the women continually back away in disgust.  This is as raw and primitive as it gets, but in some strange and delirious way an antecedent to Béla Tarr’s hypnotic but mind numbingly repetitious dance in SÁTÁNTANGO (1994).

When morning comes, Bruhn is barely alive, but he’s too stubborn to recognize it, commandeering Starrett to lead them safely through the mountains, though the snow has made them completely impassable at this time of year, a fact Bruhn comes to realize but withholds from his men, but that doesn’t stop them from what feels like a suicide march, telling Starrett:  “I guess every fool has his reason.”  If Bruhn’s deteriorating condition is not enough, the elements have turned so hostile, where frozen breath can be seen coming from both the men and their horses, with snow up to their bellies, completely covering the landscape, the horses can barely find a way to take one step after another, yet they’re forced to push on.  Rarely are animals seen exerting themselves in this level of difficulty where there are no CGI special effects, they are simply staggering to keep their feet in the brutally harsh conditions.  Beautifully shot by Russell Harlan, knowing what’s inevitable only adds to the pounding psychological dread of this death march, as the men soon start to turn on one another in an insatiable display of greed and avarice, where the music by Alexander Courage is heavy handed and amped up to the max.  Imprisoned by the snow around them, it’s apparent there is no escape, as first horses and then men do start to die in the blistering winter cold where the wind is too ferocious to even light a fire.  It’s telling that in this exceedingly concise rendering, there are no shots of the cavalry, and by the end, no one is pointing a gun at these men’s heads, yet they feel a compulsive desire to follow this mythical trail to that elusive freedom that never arrives, to make that last great escape.  Instead they ride into their own trap.  The story isn’t entirely bleak, as de Toth even adds an element of dark humor to show the demise of one of the last holdouts.  By the end, however, none of the original issues that were worth dying for at the time hardly seem to matter any more.