jpdoherty
20 Century Fox's THE TALL MEN (1955) is one of their elaborate Cinemascope/colour westerns they were so expert at producing in the fifties. But let's not lose the run of ourselves altogether here for it's not really that good and there are some serious anomalies in the production. Besides a couple of blatant continuity problems, the screenplay by Sidney Boehm and Frank Nugent is unremarkable and quite pedestrian. But most importantly the direction by veteran Raoul Walsh is lame and unexciting. None of Walsh'e fifties movies are very interesting! This once great director of such forties classics as "They Died With Their Boots On" (1941), "Gentleman Jim"(1942), "White Heat" (1949) and his masterpiece "Objective Burma" (1945) appeared to have lost his creative punch in any of his later films. ( His final movie - a western called "A Distant Trumpet" (1964) was an unmitigated disaster!) However,THE TALL MEN is saved primarily by the screen presence of its star Clark Gable and also by the sparkling Cinemascope cinematography of Leo Tover plus the remarkable score by the great Victor Young.From a novel by Clay Fisher THE TALL MEN is the story of two brothers (Gable and Cameron Mitchell), late of the Confederate army, who arrive in Texas intending to make their fortune. They meet and hook up with a somewhat unscrupulous businessman (a surprisingly bland Robert Ryan in a poorly written role) and make a deal with him to drive 5000 head of cattle to Montana. Before the drive they rescue a feisty Jane Russell from the Indians and take her along on the journey resulting, of course, in Gable and Ryan vying for her affections. Along the trail there are some good action scenes when Gable and his Vaqueros take on a gang of Jayhawkers and fend off a well staged Indian attack near the picture's end.(A splendid set piece where the Vaqueros stampede the cattle into the path of the marauding Indians).This was Gable's first real "John Wayne" type western (There are even shades of Howard Hawks "Red River" and interestingly Hawks' younger brother William is producer on THE TALL MEN). Gable had dabbled in the genre before in movies like "Boom Town" (1940), "Across The Wide Missouri" (1951) and the excellent "Lone Star" (1952) but in THE TALL MEN and with dazzling panache he is the real deal herding cattle across the prairie. He had never before done this kind of movie and it suited him extremely well. It's a great pity he never did more of this type of western! (A later one - directed by Walsh again - the abysmal "The King & Four Queens" (1957) is best left in the obscurity it deserves). The supporting cast are uniformly OK with the only real drawback being Jane Russell! An actress I always found most irritating who - with her smart mouth and that snarl-like facial expression - never impressed me as the choice female in any movie. To me she was so unappealing and could emit about as much sex appeal as a Humpback Whale! So how Gable came to choose her as his leading lady is one of the great mysteries of life I guess! She just doesn't compliment him in the slightest! Someone like Susan Hayward or his old MGM co-star Ava Gardner would have been much more suitable!One of the most tangible aspects of the film is Victor Young's extraordinary music! The great composer of such hit tunes from his film scores as "My Foolish Heart", "Love Letters", "Stella By Starlight" ("The Uninvited") and "When I Fall In Love" (from "One Minute To Zero") was no stranger when it came to writing for the great outdoors of the American west. Among his music for westerns are such classics as "Wells Fargo" (1937), "Northwest Mounted Police" (1940),"Rio Grande" (1950), "Johnny Guitar" (1954) and most memorably "Shane" (1953). For THE TALL MEN he composed one of his finest themes for a western! First heard over the credits it is used later in the picture to point up the vast spectacle of 5000 cattle lumbering across the plains. With its appealing key changes and rich engaging orchestration this long loping piece is not only melodic but is wonderfully appropriate! The year after THE TALL MEN Victor Young passed away! He was only 56 years old! That same year he was posthumously awarded an Oscar for his magnificent score for "Around The World In 80 Days". During his career he was nominated 19 times. When he died he had just begun working on his score for a now forgotten film called "China Gate" and had only written the Main Title music. His friend Max Steiner stepped in and finished the score without pay. The music credit on "China Gate" reads "Music by Victor Young - Extended by his old friend Max Steiner".If you can overlook some of the glaring faults in THE TALL MEN like the slim screenplay, the uneven direction, some iffy performances, a couple of continuity problems and the presence of Miss Russell there is some enjoyment to be had from the movie thanks to the stunning widescreen cinematography, Young's awesome score and of course the inimitable Clark Gable strutting his stuff like never before.
weezeralfalfa
Robert Ryan's character, Nathan Stark, is based upon a real person, Nelson Storey, who struck it rich near the boomtown of Virginia City, MT(renamed Mineral City in the film) and, in 1866, drove a herd of Texas Longhorns north from Texas to meet the pent up demand for beef among the gold miners. As in the film, he did encounter trouble from jayhawkers when he tried to drive his cattle through Kansas, he did have a major encounter with the Sioux in Wyoming, and the army did try to prevent him from proceeding further along the Bozeman Trail, because of Native American hostility. Part of this herd was used to establish a permanent herd in MT. The other aspects of this film are purely fictitious, if entertaining, and mostly involve the give and take between Jane Russell, Clark Gable and Robert Ryan. Of course, we can rightly assume that, in the end, Russell and Gable will end up together, although it doesn't look promising for most of the film.From my perspective, this film incorporates key elements from 3 previous films. As in "Call of the Wild", made 20 years before, Gable and companions rescue a beautiful woman in dire circumstances in a snowy wilderness(not once, but twice in the present film!) The woman eventually has to choose between Gable and another man. 5 years later, director Raoul Walsh directed a Civil War western "Dark Command". Quantrill's raiders, a quasi-military Confederate guerilla gang, were prominently featured in that film. In the present film, Gable, as Ben, and his brother, Clint(Cameron Mitchell) have recently quit Quantrill's raider's when they show up in Mineral City. In both films, the featured lady eventually has to choose between a poor but heroic cowboy or a sophisticated but overly ambitious rival, who throws money and promised status at her. The cowboy doesn't appear to have a ghost of a chance, but....Of course, there are some similarities with the previous "Red River". Both involve an epic cattle drive north out of Texas. Both involve occasional disputes among the leaders as to how to proceed or handle a dire situation at hand. However, there is no mutiny in "The Tall Men". Rather, the long drive sequence serves to better test the characters of the main protagonists and to give Russell more time to decide for sure who she wants to live with.(Both Gable and Ryan qualify as being "tall"). Russell's royal treatment on the trail by Stark reminds me of the spoiled tycoon in "Call of the Wild". Both merit their private bath tub on the trail!I thought Russell and Gable were generally excellent, with snappy dialogue and a good amount of sarcastic humor in their give and take. Russell certainly serves to lighten the tedium of the long cattle drive compared to the much more limited female presence in "Red River". She talks of her hard life growing up on a ranch(where?), but she also seems accustomed to fancy dresses and jewelry. What was she doing in the Wyoming winter wilderness, trying to get to CA? Who cares. Ryan, as Stark, was stiff and unemotional, with little sense of humor. I don't know if this is typical Ryan or an intentional characterization to make Gable's character look relatively more appealing to Russell. As was true of most of his films in his last 10 years, Gable's character was certainly meant for someone a good 20 years younger than Gable, who looked all of his 54 years. However, a weathered-looking Gable seemed better than no Gable.All-in-all, I found it an entertaining '50s western epic, shot in vivid CinemaScope. I don't agree with the scathing reviews of the times, nor with the common very unfavorable comparison with "Red River". The trail drive sequence was perhaps a bit long, but a lot shorter than the real 1500 mile drive! I liked Victor Young's background traveling music, played as the cattle were crossing that big river, for example. Yes, Ben was lucky in his occasional risky bravado episodes. but that's what you expect of Gable. The relationship between Stark and Ben and Clint was certainly unusual. The last 10 min. bring a few surprises in sorting out the final relationships between the principles, which have been simmering through most of the film....I didn't get around to discussing Ben's troubled, more trigger happy, brother. Remember that, as former members of Quantrill's raiders, the brothers were used to stealing, burning and killing. The James-Younger gang would emerge as the final incarnation of Quantrill's raiders.In an update, I recently became aware of two other excellent epic cattle drive films from this general era: "Cowboy", starring Glenn Ford and Jack Lemmon, and "The Texans", back in the '30s, starring Randolph Scott.
Marlburian
The film starts off in a promising way, with the two Allisons down on their luck and robbing Stark - who then convinces them to take part in a cattle drive. But it then hits a longueur with Ben and Nella snowbound in a cabin and "falling in love" just like like that. I suppose this reflects the straitlaced conventions of the time; a more modern film would have the two enjoying a romp.I'm a Robert Ryan fan, but here he's put in the shade by the screen presence of Gable and Russell and comes over as being colourless.The stampede scene is very good, even allowing for the film being speeded up (to be non-technical).Overall, it's a good cattle-drive Western, but doesn't compare with "Red River", and Jane Russell is a bit too intrusive at times.
