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Nicholas Ray directed this excellent melodrama about ordinary folks trying to make their American Dream happen by utilizing the rodeo circuit. Arthur Kennedy and Susan Hayward star as Wes and Louise Merritt, an ordinary couple living an ordinary life as a ranch hand and a ranch hand's wife respectively. In walks Robert Mitchum as Jeff McCloud, a virile stranger who may be an opportunist and a lothario as well as an ex rodeo champion. Director Ray, known for his strong characterizations, excels at meshing the three lives of the principals in this film. Kennedy tires of ranch life just as Mitchum enters the picture, worrying his wife Hayward.
Mitchum is outstanding as usual in the role of Jeff McCloud and fits right in with the rough and tumble rodeo world. Kennedy is perhaps too old to play a new rodeo star, and he certainly does not have the athleticism and physicality of Mitchum to be as believable as a rodeo star. However, Kennedy's character changes as the film progresses from an ordinary ranch hand to an egotistical star, becoming more distant from his wife's perspective. Hayward's character character changes too from a dutiful spouse to a woman willing to fight to keep her husband and in one piece. Mitchum's character change near the end is not quite believable, and as a result, the ending is not entirely satisfying.
Director Nicholas Ray was always ahead of his time, focusing on characters' conflicts with themselves as well as each other; in that, the conflicts served as catalysts for action and/or change. Ray filmed the rodeo scenes with a 16 millimeter hand-held camera, a device that modern filmmakers have returned to with digital cameras in recent years in filming within close quarters, to intensify emotion/horror, or to portray an environment with more realism. Ray made an interesting choice to film in black and white in between two films in color he did: Flying Leathernecks and Johnny Guitar, mirroring the very real black and white results of his characters' decisions in The Lusty Men. Arthur Hunnicutt has a supporting role as an aging ranch hand. Horace McCoy contributed to the screenplay. *** of 4 stars.
score 8/10
CitizenCaine 5 November 2011
Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw2514158/ |
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24-2-2021 00:06:06