elvircorhodzic THE MAN FROM LARAMIE is one pretty good western drama. The stranger comes to a small town. He begins to question citizens about the murder of a group of soldiers by Apaches. In the meantime, he clashes with the son of a powerful rancher....The life of the main character is uncertain and tense. This situation has been caused by his mysterious motivations. The story and themes are typical for westerns of that period. A lone hero bravely confronts the powerful tyrant in a small town. Standing conflicts and unknown past of the main character makes this film lively and interesting. This movie is actually a search for the main villain. Frankly, I am pleased that the Apaches are not presented in an extremely negative way, they are a kind of a "cruel court" at the end of the film.The story is quite tense, but predictable in certain segments. The scenery is quite impressive. Mr. Mann has, creating nature in which the story takes place, painted the individual characters.James Stewart as Will Lockhart is again (as always) dominant. The actor who gives a different dimension to the heroic roles. His character has a direct impact on the atmosphere in the film. His performance is always complemented by a strong and sympathetic female character.

James Hitchcock "The Man from Laramie" was the last of the five Westerns which James Stewart made with director Anthony Mann. There should have been a sixth, "Night Passage", but Mann withdrew from the project, reportedly because he was unhappy with the script and with the casting of Audie Murphy as Stewart's co-star, and the two never worked together again. (According to some versions of the story, they never spoke to one another again). Here Stewart plays Will Lockhart, the titular Man from Laramie, who leads a wagon train to the small town of Coronado, New Mexico. Lockhart, however, is not in town purely for business reasons. He also wants revenge for the death of his brother, an Army cavalry trooper, killed by the Apaches. He is seeking revenge not on the Indians themselves but on the white men who sold them rifles used in the attack. While in Coronado, Lockhart tangles with the Waggomans, powerful local ranchers. The film, in fact, is as much about this family as it is about Lockhart, and it explores their relationships in some detail. Alec Waggoman, the patriarch and an elderly widower, is an outwardly autocratic figure, but inwardly is haunted by mysterious nightmares and by the fact that he is gradually losing his eyesight. He is also troubled by the mutual dislike between his son Dave and his foreman Vic Hansbro, whom Alec regards virtually as an adopted second son. Two added complications are that Lockhart and Vic are both in love with the same woman, Alec's niece Barbara, and that Lockhart goes to work for Kate Canady, once Alec's lover and now his business rival.Two common features of the Mann-Stewart Westerns are striking photography of the Western scenery and a greater blurring of the moral boundaries between good and evil than was common in Westerns of the fifties, although this second feature was often found in other genres of the period, notable film noir. Both these features are to be found in "The Man from Laramie", which was one of the first Westerns to be filmed in CinemaScope to give a sense of the wide open New Mexico landscapes. Like all the Mann-Stewart collaborations except the first, "Winchester 73", it was shot in colour, part of a growing trend away from black-and- white in this particular genre. Dave Waggoman is an obvious villain- arrogant, hot-tempered and sadistic. Our first sight of him comes when, acting on very little provocation, he kills twelve mules and burns three wagons belonging to Lockhart. The other major characters, however, are more difficult to characterise as heroes or villains. Lockhart is the film's protagonist, and generally has right on his side, but he can also be angry, bitter and vindictive. Alec has a moral sense which Dave lacks, but can also be authoritarian with his workers and over-indulgent to his worthless son. In the confrontations between Dave and Vic he sides with his biological son over his adopted one, even though he is under no illusions about Dave's true character. Vic at first appears to be a rough diamond, lacking in social graces but with a sense of decency which sets him apart from the villainous Dave. We sympathise with him when he is treated unfairly by his adoptive father and he seems genuine in his love for Barbara. As the film progresses, however, Vic reveals himself to be as much of a villain as Dave, if not more so. The reviewer who drew parallels with the Gloucester subplot in "King Lear" should have recalled that in that play only one of Gloucester's sons, the illegitimate Edmund, proves to be a villain; his legitimate son Edgar is noble and magnanimous. Despite the unhappy ending to their relationship, James Stewart gave some of his best performances in his work with Mann, and he gives another good one here as the conflicted Lockhart, showing us the rough edges of his character but always holding our sympathy and our interest. There are also good supporting contributions from Donald Crisp as Alec, Alex Nicol as Dave and especially from Arthur Kennedy as Vic. (Kennedy was one of those gifted actors who never quite seemed to make the transition from supporting actor to leading man in his cinema career, even though he played many leading roles on stage). The fifties were a time when psychological Westerns, character-driven rather than action- driven, were increasing in popularity, and "The Man from Laramie" is an excellent example of this trend. 8/10

athomed James Stewart came back from his time in the Air Force (during World War 2) and found he couldn't play the same roles he had been playing pre-war. Stewart was being introduced to a new audience. Anthony Mann helped him do that with a string of successful westerns, starting with Winchester '73 in 1950. This new persona stuck and Stewart generally acted in edgier roles going forward.The Man from Laramie is about a mysterious cowboy who rides in from Laramie with three wagons full of supplies for the local general store. We're eventually introduced to the real reason Will Lockhart, the man from Laramie, is here. He wants justice, maybe just revenge, for his late brother.Stewart and Arthur Kennedy headline an above average cast here. The acting is strong throughout and there are few true villains in this one. Each character is two dimensional with their own positives and negatives as we all are.

Robert J. Maxwell This tale of revenge and family dynamics in the Southwest is lifted above the routine by a couple of elements. The location shooting in New Mexico is nicely done. There are a couple of stand-out scenes. And most of the important performances are splendidly executed.Anthony Mann and Jimmy Stewart made a number of Westerns in the post-war period that were unusual in that they revealed a sort of neurotic rage in Jimmy Stewart, previously best known for being a simple nice guy on the screen. A startling intensity began showing through his performances beginning with "It's A Wonderful Life (1946)." Whether his experiences during the war had anything to do with it or whether he was making a career move to break out of stereotyped roles, we don't know. Maybe both.In any case Anthony Mann's direction seemed to provide a channel for Stewart's rage. This is a brutal movie. More than that, it was shocking at the time of its release. It was unnerving to see someone shoot a dozen mules on the screen, for instance, and Stewart's reaction to the slaughter underlines the horror. Later there is a prolonged and graphic fist fight between Stewart on the one hand and Alex Nicol and Arthur Kennedy on the other. And, most terrible of all, a scene in which Nicol deliberately and at close range shoots a hole through captive Stewart's outstretched palm. With each outrage, Stewart is as adept at registering pain as fury.I'm going to skip over the family dynamics because they're a little complicated, though accessible to adults, and a little overdrawn. There are some women involved but they're dispensable. Everyone gets what's more or less coming to him.Alex Nicol does a fine job as the spoiled, power-hungry, narcissistic son of Donald Crisp, the old rancher who "owns this country." The problem with Nicol's role is that it's one dimensional. He has no redeeming qualities whatever, and we know from the moment he plugs Stewart's hand that he's dead meat, no matter what else happens.The same can't be said for Arthur Kennedy as the devoted surrogate "son" whose position as heir to the ranch is very fragile. But Kennedy's forte is projecting indignation -- as in "Why are you DOING this to me?", and he does it superbly, better than anyone else active on the screen during this period. And he makes his filial loyalty, his love, for Old Man Crisp believable, even touching in its abjectness.This was the last film Anthony Mann and Jimmy Stewart made together. Stewart opted out partly because he felt he was moving from one stereotype (the nice guy) into another (the neurotic cowboy). He made another movie along similar lines, "Night Passage" (1957), but it seemed an imitation of what Mann and Stewart had been doing together earlier.