It's interesting that Jimmy Stewart's often excellent Westerns for director Anthony Mann, usually made at Universal, are so well thought of, but Glenn Ford's Westerns at Columbia much less so. Ford's oaters lacked the consistency of the Stewart-Mann collaborations, but quite a few are classics or near-classics all their own. Here, Ford is John Parrish, who came out west to die after one of his lungs was shot to pieces during the Civil War. But his new neighbors and the clean air nursed him back to health, and he eventually settled into cattle ranching.

However, Lee Wilkison (Edward G. Robinson), owner of the powerful Anchor Ranch, is strong-arming every rancher in the valley to sell out, at prices far below market value. When they don't sell the cattlemen usually turn up dead, murdered in cold blood by brutal gunman Wade Matlock (Richard Jaeckel). His fiancee (May Wynn) desperate to move east, Parrish decides to sell out himself ("It's not my war," he says), much to the disappointment of the remaining ranchers and farmers, who pressure him to stay on. But when Wilkison makes Parrish an insultingly low offer for his land and stock, and after Matlock shoots dead one of Parrish's own cowboys, the rancher reluctantly decides to stand his ground.

The outwardly conventional premise of The Violent Men is followed by some interestingly complex character development, some of it impressively subtle, some outrageously melodramatic, but most of it entertaining. The townsfolk don't want to believe the enigmatic Parrish would sell to Wilkison out of fear, but in keeping his reasons to himself, he invites accusations that he's running scared. It's eventually and subtly expressed that Parrish knows that if he is going to take a stand against Wilkison, he's going to have to do it all the way, to be as violent and brutal as Wilkison is (hence the film's title), using strategies gleaned during his Cavalry days that are as savage and pitiless as those used by Wilkison's men.

The moral ambiguity of Ford's character is balanced by Robinson's Wilkison, whose ruthlessness is smartly built up in early scenes before the character makes his first appearance. When he is introduced, Wilkison comes off as a coarse, unpleasant cattle baron undeserving of much sympathy. Like Parrish, he too was nearly shot dead; an Indian attack rendered his legs useless, leaving him, ahem, "half a man."

But it soon becomes clear that, for all his brutishness, it's actually Wilkison's younger brother, Cole (Brian Keith), who's behind the killings, with Wilkison's two-timing wife, Martha (Barbara Stanwyck), pulling the strings - with Lee and Martha's sullen adult daughter, Judith (Diane Foster), all too aware of her mother's philandering. This family dynamic, revealed as Parrish's uncompromising attacks on Anchor commence, puts The Violent Men several notches above the usual Western.

In the hands of cinematographer-turned-director Rudolph Mate, the performances are inconsistent but lively. Robinson, as almost always, is superb, and his subtle character turnabout appears effortless. Stanwyck, by contrast, gives a campy performance that plays to the back of the theater. Partly this is the fault of screenwriter Harry Kleiner, whose dialogue for the actress is more than a bit ripe, but Stanwyck gives it her all. Keith, in one of the great mismatched bits of sibling casting - he a hulking, red-haired Irishman, Robinson a short Romanian Jew - almost makes it work with his an impressively understated performance of his own.

Ford, for his part, is appropriately aloof per the role's requirements. There's not much payoff to the character, but when Parrish's violence reemerges, particularly in his confrontation with Matlock, it packs quite a punch. A later ambush is likewise interesting for demonstrating Parrish's strategic skills and growing ruthlessness.

Video & Audio

An early CinemaScope release, The Violent Men is presented in its original 2.35:1 aspect ratio in an excellent 16:9 anamorphic transfer. Though there's some harshness in the title elements and opticals (dissolves, fades, etc.), overall the image is sharp with good color (the original release had prints by Technicolor). The 3.0/LCR stereo sound is quite good, with Max Steiner's lush score coming off especially well. English and Japanese subtitles are included, but not French and Spanish. There are no Extra Features, not even a trailer.

Parting Thoughts

Those who think '50s Westerns are limited to the Stewart-Mann films, The Searchers, High Noon, and Rio Bravo should check out this current wave of Columbia Westerns, and The Violent Men is a good place to start. Recommended.

Stuart Galbraith IV is a Los Angeles and Kyoto-based film historian whose work includes The Emperor and the Wolf -- The Lives and Films of Akira Kurosawa and Toshiro Mifune. His new book, Cinema Nippon will be published by Taschen in 2005.