NFR Project: 'Shane' (1953)

 

NFR Project: “Shane”

Dir: George Stevens

Scr: A.B. Guthrie, Jr., Jack Sher

Pho: Loyal Griggs

Ed: William Hornbeck, Tom McAdoo

Premiere: April 23, 1953

118 min.

It’s the archetypal Western. It takes all the elements of the genre and typifies them. If you had to show someone what a Western was, you would show them this film.

It’s shot primarily on location, in widescreen and glorious Technicolor. Its gorgeous look gives it an epic feel, far beyond that indicated by the simplicity of its plot. Director George Stevens was at his best telling a rollicking adventure tale, and this is one of them.

It’s set in Wyoming territory in 1889. Settlers are beginning to encroach on the open range. A cattle baron, Ryker, is set on expelling the “sodbusters” who just want to make lives for themselves on the edge of the wilderness. Joe (Van Heflin), Marian (Jean Arthur), and their son Joey (the peculiar-looking, cross-eyed Brandon deWilde) are homesteaders. Joe is the leader of the farmers, and finds himself in the crosshairs of harassment from Ryker, who wants them off what he considers to be his land.

Into the valley rides Shane (Alan Ladd), a mysterious and soft-spoken man who’s handy with a gun. (He nervously reaches for his revolver when he hears a loud sound.) He accepts Joe’s hospitality, and offers to work for him, taking off his buckskin outfit and gun and donning work clothes. He seems to be putting his past behind him.

Shane goes into town to pick up supplies, and a soda pop for Joey. When he goes into the bar to get one, he is tormented by one of Ryker’s men (an untypically evil Ben Johnson). The settlers decide to all go into town together for safety’s sake next time; there, Shane and Joe fight the whole Ryker gang and gain a temporary victory. Ryker decides to up the ante by hiring a gunfighter to clean out the emigrants.

The gunfighter, Wilson (a thoroughly evil Jack Palance) comes to town and picks a fight with an ornery Southern settler, Torrey (Elisha Cook, Jr.). Torrey draws his gun and Wilson shoots him down, brutally. His friends bury him, and contemplate leaving, but then change their minds when they see Ryker’s men trying to burn out another farm.

Ryker finally determines that Joe is the settlers’ ringleader, and he asks him to come see him at the bar in town. Shane realizes that Ryker intends to kill Joe. Shane knocks Joe unconscious, dons his traveling buckskins and gun, and rides into town. Joey follows him. Shane stands up to Wilson, Ryker, and Ryker’s brother, killing all of them. He then tells Joey he must move on, and leaves the valley, wounded, with Joey’s cry ringing in his ears – “Come back, Shane!”

It takes violence to make the West safe for settling – but the very act of taking lives disqualifies Shane from sharing in the new order. “A man has to be what he is, Joey. Can’t break the mould. I tried it and it didn’t work for me . . . There’s no living with a killing.” Shane, who yearns for a normal life (and obviously yearns for a woman like Marian), must exile himself from the very order his lawlessness has created.

The magisterial approach to the film gives it a mythic feel. The characters are at once individuated and symbolic. When Shane leaves the screen, the sense that a page in the history book has been turned is prevalent.

The NFR Project is one writer’s attempt to review all the films listed in the National Film Registry in chronological order. Next time: The Tell-Tale Heart.