Review: The Violent Men

Wheelchair-bound cattle baron Edward G. Robinson tries to expand his empire by driving people off their land by brute force, in the form of nasty ranch hand Brian Keith, who is also his younger brother. Former Confederate cavalry captain Glenn Ford plans to sell to Robinson, and head east with soon-to-be bride May Wynn. He doesn’t want to fight, it’s not his war, he says. However, after receiving an offensively meagre price from mean-spirited Robinson, and his foreman is murdered by psycho gunman Richard Jaeckel (not bad, in a fairly small part), something stirs inside of Ford. He decides to stay and fight, losing Wynn in the process. Barbara Stanwyck is Robinson’s scheming wife, who is going around with Keith behind Robinson’s (broken) back, and cooking up something dastardly indeed. Only daughter Dianne Foster is wise to it, openly contemptuous of her mother and uncle, and barely tolerates mean (but foolish) ‘ol dad.

 

This 1955 Rudolph Maté (“The Far Horizons” and the supernaturally-tinged weepie “Miracle in the Rain”) western has a helluva great cast and some good action, but everything in terms of plot and character seems lifted from any number of other, superior films. Stanwyck does her standard scheming femme fatale a few years past her prime, and whilst never bad to have around, the actress never really gets to cut loose. This is perhaps because she, fine as she is, has to contend with other scene-stealers like Robinson and Keith. They get all the film’s best moments, with the former doing a mix of Lear (to Stanwyck’s Lady Macbeth, perhaps) and the kind of cantankerous, rich ‘cripple’ Lionel Barrymore used to play. The latter meanwhile, is surprisingly suave, cool, and charismatic, one of his best and earliest performances. Ford is solid as a rock as ever (playing the man who is reluctantly driven to violence as he often did), and Foster yet again shows how unfortunately underrated she was. It’s such a shame that her career was so short.

 

It’s pretty watchable stuff (with some fine action scenes sprinkled throughout), but of a much lesser grade than the cast would lead you to believe. The screenplay is by the usually reliable Harry Kleiner (“Carmen Jones”, “Fantastic Voyage”, “Bullitt”, “Madigan”), from a Donald Hamilton (author of “The Big Country”, which was turned into an excellent western) novel.

 

Rating: C+