Brutal, Grim Revenge Western!

bsmith5552

"The Bravados" directed by veteran Henry King gives us a portrait of a man so consumed by hate and revenge that he abandons all of his principles.

A grim looking man, Jim Douglass rides into the town of Rio Reba (I think that's right) to watch the hanging of four men he believes are responsible for his wife's brutal rape and murder. The men, Bill Zachary (Stephen Boyd), Ed Taylor (Albert Salmi), Alfonso Parral (Lee Van Cleef) and the Indian Lujan (Henry Silva) are locked up in Sheriff Sanchez'(Hebert Rudley) jail awaiting their fate.

As luck would have it, Jim runs into Josefa Velarde (Joan Collins) with whom he has had a past relationship. The town Padre (Andrew Duggan) and Douglass also have had a past relationship, one that is not made clear.

Mr. Simms the hangman (Joe De Rita) comes to town to perform his "service" for the community. Simms however, turns out to be in league with the outlaws and helps them to escape while the townsfolk are at church but gets himself killed in the process.

The outlaws take Emma Steimmetz (Kathleen Gallant) the daughter of storekeeper Gus Steimmetz (George Vuskovic) as hostage. Deputy Sheriff Primo (Ken Scott) organizes a posse that includes Emma's fiancé Tom (Barry Coe) to go after the men. Douglass joins them in the pursuit. Douglass manages to separate himself from the posse and kills Parral and Taylor in separate brutal actions.

The outlaws come to the cabin of miner John Butler (Gene Evans) looking for food and fresh horses. Zachary kills Butler as he is trying to run away and then brutally rapes (off screen) the helpless Emma.

The remaining outlaws make it over the border to Mexico. The posse stops at the border but Douglass carries on. Douglass tracks them to a Mexican cantina but Lujan escapes. Later, Douglass comes to a grim realization and.....................

Director Henry King gives us a largely unsympathetic Gregory Peck in that he becomes a cold hearted killer who brutally murders the men he pursues. They had worked together in the 1950 classic "The Gunfighter" in which Peck was also a killer. Peck is quite convincing as the unfeeling man of revenge. Even the beautiful Joan Collins (who was never lovelier) can't deter him from his task. His killing of the Van Cleef and Salmi characters is particularly brutal for the time, even though we don't actually see the final acts.

Boyd, Salmi, Van Cleef and Silva make nasty outlaws. The rape scene though happening for the most part off screen (to appease the censors), leaves little to the imagination.

Joe De Rita would go on to appear as "Curley Joe" as part of The Three Stooges in the 1960s.

In spite of the Hollywood ending, this film remains as one of the best westerns of the 1950s.

score 8/10

bsmith5552 30 July 2007

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw1703136/