RAWHIDE

US, 1951, 89 minutes, Black and white.
Tyrone Power, Susan Hayward, Hugh Marlowe, Dean Jagger, Edgar Buchanan, Jack Elam, George Tobias, Jeff Corey.
Directed by Henry Hathaway.

Rawhide is a small western, interesting with the star power of Tyrone Power and Susan Hayward (who were to appear four years later in Untamed). They were directed by Henry Hathaway.) The film was directed by Henry Hathaway, veteran director of many action films in the 30s including Lives of a Bengal Lancer, the first colour western, Trail of the Lonesome Pine. Diplomatic Courier is more in the vein of some of his 1940s thrillers, especially after World War Two, 13 Rue Madeleine, House on 92nd Street, Call Northside 777. After this he was to make some rather glossy Cinemascope films including The River of No Return and continue making westerns into the 60s with John Wayne such as The Sons of Katie Elder and True Grit, for which Wayne won a best actor Oscar.

Hugh Marlowe is the deputy sheriff. The film focuses on a stagecoach which is in a stopover – warned that four outlaws are in the vicinity and could attack. They are preparing a robbery.

Familiar material, not the television series …!

1. Was this a good Western? How conventional? Its use of stagecoach conventions?

2. Comment on the film's picture of the West. The attitude towards law and order, crime, life and death, survival? What was the main impact of this West?

3. The importance of the framework of the description of the stagecoach ride? Framed as an advertisement? The tone that it gave to the happenings of the film?

4. How vividly portrayed was the outpost itself? Physical set-up, the stages of the coach-ride. the hardness and isolation of life, the quality of meals, the perennial danger? The outpost as the theme of the film?

5. Tyrone Power as a hero? The characterization of Owens? How heroic? Unwillingly in the West, in an atmosphere of life and death, his making mistakes, the victim of mistakes by the criminals, surviving, protecting the woman and child, finally risking death? The experience as changing him for the future?

6. Susan Hayward's portrayal of the heroine? A hard-boiled passenger, her daughter, being mistaken for Owen's wife, her arrogance, her reaction to the criminals, the digging of the tunnel, the anguish for him? The fact that she shot the villain? The experience as changing her for the future?

7. How vivid was the portrayal of the criminals? A West that corrupts educated men like Zimmermann, kill or be killed not trusting anyone? The escapist from prison, the coward, the foreigner who was loyal to the criminal? The main criminal with his leering and cruelty? Being bossed by Zimmerman and then killing him? His taunts and disregard for the child's life? What comment on criminals did the film make? How did they contrast with the men of the stage, the old man at the outpost?

8. How well did the film portray the themes of greed, death and survival, fear?

9. The film was made at the beginning of the fifties. Is this evident? Is it typical of the Western genre?