You Have Now Entered...The Western Zone
Today's review: Saddle the Wind.
The title Saddle the Wind makes it fairly obvious that the movie it’s attached to is a Western, but it also suggests that the movie will be somewhat melancholy. Perhaps it’s a movie about the last days of the Old West, or centers around a lonely rider who wants to settle down but knows he can’t. The actual movie doesn’t really have this quality at all, but I’m not inclined to dock points for it being a bait-and-switch, because what we got wound up surprising me, mostly in a good way.
Initially, you think you have some idea of where the movie is going. We open with a shady looking man (Charles McGraw) riding into a town and settling into the local saloon, harassing the workers and making it clear he’s bad news. He also says he’s looking for someone named Steve Sinclair, and we soon cut over to a nearby ranch, where Steve (Robert Taylor) has been running a decent little operation, having bought the land from his mentor, the peace loving Dennis Deneen (Donald Crisp). He runs it with his brother Tony (John Cassavetes), who’s enthusiastic, but also a bit impulsive and hot-headed. This is demonstrated by the fact that he comes home from bringing the cattle to market with the money, a fancy new gun…and a woman, Joan Blake (Julie London), who he plans to marry. Steve seems opposed to this marriage (admittedly understandably), but some of the conversations he has with Tony reveal that he (Steve) used to be a gunman but gave up on that life, and may have become a little overprotective of Tony to keep him from going down the same path. Given what we saw at the start of the movie, we naturally assume that this is a movie about the past coming back to haunt Steve, and possibly a double coming of age as Tony proves his worth and Steve learns to let him go. Instead, things take a very surprising turn.
Despite my constant talk about the importance of story and praising the screenwriters when they do a good job, I rarely actually credit them by name, which I probably should. In this case, I’m bringing up the screenwriter’s name because I think he’s a large part of why the movie doesn’t go in the expected direction. The screenwriter (well, one of three) was Rod Serling, most famous for the TV show The Twilight Zone, which regularly used twists that upended your previous expectations. I kind of get that same vibe out of this movie, and while I might be projecting because of knowing Serling’s reputation, I was still a little startled when the plot suddenly changed, but also now more interested in seeing where this went. However, while the new plot is worth discussing, I’m also going to have to warn for SPOILERS in case you want to consider this a twist and would rather be surprised.
What happens is that Tony rides into town to show off his new fiancée and have a drink, whereupon he runs into the man from the beginning. There’s a small confrontation, but thanks to some luck, Tony winds up shooting the man and killing him. He’s delighted by this and boasts about it to Steve, but Steve’s angry at both the risk he took and the pride he’s feeling. This is when it becomes clear that Tony is a little too enamored of the idea of shooting, and those scenes where he showed what a good shot he is start to take on a different feel. A little later, Steve notices some smoke and goes to investigate, discovering a bedraggled wagon and equally bedraggled occupants. The leader is Clay Ellison (Royal Dano), the son of a man who owned a six mile strip of land between Steve and Deneen’s ranch, but moved away and gave the ranchers permission to use it for cattle grazing. Ellison now wants to use it to build a homestead, despite the old arrangement and Steve’s warning that it’s not going to be great farming land. Inevitably, Tony winds up involved, and his threats against Ellison spark a chain of events that leads to gunfights, death, and brother vs. brother. There are still moments where you can tell how things are going to play out, but there are a lot of wrinkles you probably won’t see coming, or at least don’t see in movies very often.
There’s a surprising amount of depth in the movie, though I’m not entirely sure all of it was intentional. There’s no question that the movie has some philosophical elements to it, discussing the idea of nature vs. nurture when it comes to Tony. I also think it was trying to make Joan more than just the love interest, given some of her lines, though as I’ll discuss, they didn’t entirely succeed at that. Then there are the moments that wind up offering nuance but may not have been seen that way at the time. For example, the movie takes place sometime after the Civil War, and it comes up in conversation a few times. But most of the conversations seem to be, if not pro-Confederate, at least somewhat sympathetic to them. I’m not sure if we’re supposed to see this as bad and the characters as biased, but I do know that it’s very unlikely we’d ever see anything like this today. And then there’s the whole thing surrounding Ellison and his strip of land. It feels to me like both Ellison and Steve have a point, but I’m unsure if the movie sees it that way. I’m sure Steve is right when he says the land isn’t great for farming, and Tony has no right to bully Ellison, but it’s clear that the land is Ellison’s, and he should be allowed to use it as he sees fit. Yet the movie gives the distinct impression that it thinks Ellison is unreasonable for not wanting the ranchers to use it as grazing land, given how often the characters talk about a dislike of putting up fences. It kind of feels like Steve, the supposed good guy here, is pressuring Ellison to let the ranchers keep doing what they’re doing. Besides, we’re never given any indication of how much land is available for the ranchers-all we see are a lot of nature shots, implying there’s quite a bit of it-so I fail to see why having six miles roped off is that big of a problem. I don’t know, maybe it’s supposed to be the principle of the thing, but it didn’t play very well from my modern perspective.
One final note. As much as I found the plot surprising, I have to admit that a lot of the acting is just kind of…there. Tony and Ellison acquit themselves because they’re both meant to be stubborn and possibly a little unhinged, but all the other major players are just kind of blank, giving generic “I’m a good guy” performances. This is especially true in the case of Joan, who winds up being completely superfluous to the plot. She never adds anything of substance to the story, causes no conflict between the brothers, and doesn’t really seem to have much chemistry with either of the leads. If anything, she mostly comes off as standoffish and cold, which works early on when we hear her story but never really softens after that. In fact, there was a bit where I assumed she was being guarded because she had a past with Steve or the gunman who was after him, but that turned out to be wrong. All she winds up adding to the movie is a few pretty dresses, and as much as I like those, it’s not enough to justify her being present. Unless it was a mandate from the studio that there had to be a love interest, I’d have left her out entirely and focused on the much more interesting plot developments.
SPOILERS OVER. While I’d overall say the movie’s more on the okay to blah scale as far as personal rankings go, it’s just unusual enough that I’d recommend giving this one a look. It’s entirely possible that I just wasn’t picking up on the cues and thus was more surprised than other people would be, but I’m sure there are quite a few people who will wind up feeling the same way I do. Besides, any movie that’s trying something different and mostly succeeding at it should be seen and encouraged. Even if it’s sixty years after the fact.
The title Saddle the Wind makes it fairly obvious that the movie it’s attached to is a Western, but it also suggests that the movie will be somewhat melancholy. Perhaps it’s a movie about the last days of the Old West, or centers around a lonely rider who wants to settle down but knows he can’t. The actual movie doesn’t really have this quality at all, but I’m not inclined to dock points for it being a bait-and-switch, because what we got wound up surprising me, mostly in a good way.
Initially, you think you have some idea of where the movie is going. We open with a shady looking man (Charles McGraw) riding into a town and settling into the local saloon, harassing the workers and making it clear he’s bad news. He also says he’s looking for someone named Steve Sinclair, and we soon cut over to a nearby ranch, where Steve (Robert Taylor) has been running a decent little operation, having bought the land from his mentor, the peace loving Dennis Deneen (Donald Crisp). He runs it with his brother Tony (John Cassavetes), who’s enthusiastic, but also a bit impulsive and hot-headed. This is demonstrated by the fact that he comes home from bringing the cattle to market with the money, a fancy new gun…and a woman, Joan Blake (Julie London), who he plans to marry. Steve seems opposed to this marriage (admittedly understandably), but some of the conversations he has with Tony reveal that he (Steve) used to be a gunman but gave up on that life, and may have become a little overprotective of Tony to keep him from going down the same path. Given what we saw at the start of the movie, we naturally assume that this is a movie about the past coming back to haunt Steve, and possibly a double coming of age as Tony proves his worth and Steve learns to let him go. Instead, things take a very surprising turn.
Despite my constant talk about the importance of story and praising the screenwriters when they do a good job, I rarely actually credit them by name, which I probably should. In this case, I’m bringing up the screenwriter’s name because I think he’s a large part of why the movie doesn’t go in the expected direction. The screenwriter (well, one of three) was Rod Serling, most famous for the TV show The Twilight Zone, which regularly used twists that upended your previous expectations. I kind of get that same vibe out of this movie, and while I might be projecting because of knowing Serling’s reputation, I was still a little startled when the plot suddenly changed, but also now more interested in seeing where this went. However, while the new plot is worth discussing, I’m also going to have to warn for SPOILERS in case you want to consider this a twist and would rather be surprised.
What happens is that Tony rides into town to show off his new fiancée and have a drink, whereupon he runs into the man from the beginning. There’s a small confrontation, but thanks to some luck, Tony winds up shooting the man and killing him. He’s delighted by this and boasts about it to Steve, but Steve’s angry at both the risk he took and the pride he’s feeling. This is when it becomes clear that Tony is a little too enamored of the idea of shooting, and those scenes where he showed what a good shot he is start to take on a different feel. A little later, Steve notices some smoke and goes to investigate, discovering a bedraggled wagon and equally bedraggled occupants. The leader is Clay Ellison (Royal Dano), the son of a man who owned a six mile strip of land between Steve and Deneen’s ranch, but moved away and gave the ranchers permission to use it for cattle grazing. Ellison now wants to use it to build a homestead, despite the old arrangement and Steve’s warning that it’s not going to be great farming land. Inevitably, Tony winds up involved, and his threats against Ellison spark a chain of events that leads to gunfights, death, and brother vs. brother. There are still moments where you can tell how things are going to play out, but there are a lot of wrinkles you probably won’t see coming, or at least don’t see in movies very often.
There’s a surprising amount of depth in the movie, though I’m not entirely sure all of it was intentional. There’s no question that the movie has some philosophical elements to it, discussing the idea of nature vs. nurture when it comes to Tony. I also think it was trying to make Joan more than just the love interest, given some of her lines, though as I’ll discuss, they didn’t entirely succeed at that. Then there are the moments that wind up offering nuance but may not have been seen that way at the time. For example, the movie takes place sometime after the Civil War, and it comes up in conversation a few times. But most of the conversations seem to be, if not pro-Confederate, at least somewhat sympathetic to them. I’m not sure if we’re supposed to see this as bad and the characters as biased, but I do know that it’s very unlikely we’d ever see anything like this today. And then there’s the whole thing surrounding Ellison and his strip of land. It feels to me like both Ellison and Steve have a point, but I’m unsure if the movie sees it that way. I’m sure Steve is right when he says the land isn’t great for farming, and Tony has no right to bully Ellison, but it’s clear that the land is Ellison’s, and he should be allowed to use it as he sees fit. Yet the movie gives the distinct impression that it thinks Ellison is unreasonable for not wanting the ranchers to use it as grazing land, given how often the characters talk about a dislike of putting up fences. It kind of feels like Steve, the supposed good guy here, is pressuring Ellison to let the ranchers keep doing what they’re doing. Besides, we’re never given any indication of how much land is available for the ranchers-all we see are a lot of nature shots, implying there’s quite a bit of it-so I fail to see why having six miles roped off is that big of a problem. I don’t know, maybe it’s supposed to be the principle of the thing, but it didn’t play very well from my modern perspective.
One final note. As much as I found the plot surprising, I have to admit that a lot of the acting is just kind of…there. Tony and Ellison acquit themselves because they’re both meant to be stubborn and possibly a little unhinged, but all the other major players are just kind of blank, giving generic “I’m a good guy” performances. This is especially true in the case of Joan, who winds up being completely superfluous to the plot. She never adds anything of substance to the story, causes no conflict between the brothers, and doesn’t really seem to have much chemistry with either of the leads. If anything, she mostly comes off as standoffish and cold, which works early on when we hear her story but never really softens after that. In fact, there was a bit where I assumed she was being guarded because she had a past with Steve or the gunman who was after him, but that turned out to be wrong. All she winds up adding to the movie is a few pretty dresses, and as much as I like those, it’s not enough to justify her being present. Unless it was a mandate from the studio that there had to be a love interest, I’d have left her out entirely and focused on the much more interesting plot developments.
SPOILERS OVER. While I’d overall say the movie’s more on the okay to blah scale as far as personal rankings go, it’s just unusual enough that I’d recommend giving this one a look. It’s entirely possible that I just wasn’t picking up on the cues and thus was more surprised than other people would be, but I’m sure there are quite a few people who will wind up feeling the same way I do. Besides, any movie that’s trying something different and mostly succeeding at it should be seen and encouraged. Even if it’s sixty years after the fact.