GUNSMOKE

US, 1953, 79 minutes, Colour.
Audie Murphy, Susan Cabot, Paul Kelly, Charles Drake, Mary Castle, Jack Kelly, Jesse White.
Directed by Nathan Juran.

Gunsmoke could be called the archetypal range western. It has the familiar characters, the situations, the confrontations that were the formula for many westerns.

Audie Murphy, who had emerged in the early 1950s as an action star, especially in westerns, plays a young man who has been a hired gun. Charles Drake is his partner. They part and Audie Murphy’s character wants to ranch. However, he encounters a rancher played by Paul Kelly who is the target of a wealthy landowner. The wealthy man wants to sabotage the cattle drive so that it does not reach the railhead where it would supply meat for the workers and so prevent the railroad intruding into his territory. Obviously, the rancher has an attractive daughter who clashes with the young man but eventually falls in love with him. There is also the dancer and singer at the saloon who is a femme fatale.

The film is sufficiently confident in itself to treat all this material as if it were new and so create a good standard western that has stood the test of time.

Director Nathan Juran was an architect who became an art director and won an Oscar for How Green Was My Valley. He started directing action films in the early 1950s.

1.The title? Expectations? Fulfilment?

2.An archetypal western? Characters, situations, the range? The confrontations? Romance? Justice? Revenge?

3.The locations, authentic? Montana territory? The ranches, the towns and saloons? The cattle-droving? The musical score?

4.Reb and Johnny, as gunmen, on the range? Deciding to change? The parting of the ways? Curly and his attempt at shooting Reb? Reb arriving in town? His job with Telford? His taking his time?

5.Losing his horse, the stagecoach, the encounter with Rita? Her hostility? Her father, his situation? The meeting with Reb, the card game, Reb winning the ranch? Rita and her hostility? Telford and his making an offer? Cora and her influence?

6.Telford, the wealthy landowner, wanting to get all the land? Sabotaging Saxon? Trying to stop the railroad? The influence of Cora?

7.Cora, songs and dances, the past love for Reb? Advising Telford to get Johnny? The set-up?

8.Reb, the ranch, Saxon and his help? The mortgage? No money? Curly and the others staying on? The plans for the cattle drive? In action, the difficulties, Reb urging them on? Curly’s dissatisfaction? Leaving, going to Telford? The cook and his problems? The attack by Telford’s men? Going over the mountain? The difficulty of the wagon going down? Rita driving? Curly and his jealousy? The going into the canyon, the pretence of the bodies around the fire, the shootout?

9.The success of the cattle drive? Reb getting the money? Saxon being injured? His working with Reb? Reb going into town, the confrontation with Telford, with Johnny, Johnny shooting Telford? The happy ending?

10.Why are these straightforward westerns of the 1950s not stuck in their own time but still interesting?