Rancho Notorious (1952)
Country: US
Technical: col 89m
Director: Fritz Lang
Cast: Marlene Dietrich, Arthur Kennedy, Mel Ferrer
Synopsis:
A cowpoke loses his girl to an itinerant badman and tirelessly tracks him down to the ranch-cum-hideout of former saloongirl turned Mrs Big, Altar Keane.
Review:
Lang's classic western of 'hate, murder and revenge' was his last, but not his first to tackle the theme of how easily a man loses his soul to the search for vengeance. Here Kennedy comes close to 'becoming what he seeks' but never quite so that we really fear for his soul. Still, in his teaming up with Frenchie (Ferrer) and evident attraction to Altar there is evidence enough of a broadening of his moral horizons, shall we say. It's a taut little film, barely an ounce of fat on it, Lang ushering on the narrative through a series of face-offs between characters - this is definitely a Western of interiors (even some of the exteriors are studio sets). But this last actually adds to the charm of this faded Technicolor melodrama, helped by Ken Darby's marvellous ballad, and it ranks alongside Johnny Guitar in its foregrounding of a fading female star as an ambivalent figure who in one sense wears the trousers, and in another remains the property of her lover.
Country: US
Technical: col 89m
Director: Fritz Lang
Cast: Marlene Dietrich, Arthur Kennedy, Mel Ferrer
Synopsis:
A cowpoke loses his girl to an itinerant badman and tirelessly tracks him down to the ranch-cum-hideout of former saloongirl turned Mrs Big, Altar Keane.
Review:
Lang's classic western of 'hate, murder and revenge' was his last, but not his first to tackle the theme of how easily a man loses his soul to the search for vengeance. Here Kennedy comes close to 'becoming what he seeks' but never quite so that we really fear for his soul. Still, in his teaming up with Frenchie (Ferrer) and evident attraction to Altar there is evidence enough of a broadening of his moral horizons, shall we say. It's a taut little film, barely an ounce of fat on it, Lang ushering on the narrative through a series of face-offs between characters - this is definitely a Western of interiors (even some of the exteriors are studio sets). But this last actually adds to the charm of this faded Technicolor melodrama, helped by Ken Darby's marvellous ballad, and it ranks alongside Johnny Guitar in its foregrounding of a fading female star as an ambivalent figure who in one sense wears the trousers, and in another remains the property of her lover.
Country: US
Technical: col 89m
Director: Fritz Lang
Cast: Marlene Dietrich, Arthur Kennedy, Mel Ferrer
Synopsis:
A cowpoke loses his girl to an itinerant badman and tirelessly tracks him down to the ranch-cum-hideout of former saloongirl turned Mrs Big, Altar Keane.
Review:
Lang's classic western of 'hate, murder and revenge' was his last, but not his first to tackle the theme of how easily a man loses his soul to the search for vengeance. Here Kennedy comes close to 'becoming what he seeks' but never quite so that we really fear for his soul. Still, in his teaming up with Frenchie (Ferrer) and evident attraction to Altar there is evidence enough of a broadening of his moral horizons, shall we say. It's a taut little film, barely an ounce of fat on it, Lang ushering on the narrative through a series of face-offs between characters - this is definitely a Western of interiors (even some of the exteriors are studio sets). But this last actually adds to the charm of this faded Technicolor melodrama, helped by Ken Darby's marvellous ballad, and it ranks alongside Johnny Guitar in its foregrounding of a fading female star as an ambivalent figure who in one sense wears the trousers, and in another remains the property of her lover.