The Man From Laramie

'The Man from Laramie' was the last of a run of outstanding Westerns made by Anthony Mann, shortly to graduate to bigger (perhaps less interesting) projects like 'El Cid' in 1961, and James Stewart, whose angst-driven cowboys of the 1950's run parallel with his self-doubting Hitchcock heroes. The plot hook is almost noirish, prefiguring 1971's 'Get Carter', as Will Lockhart (Stewart) investigates his brother's death and gets embroiled in the Lear-like family struggle of a blind cattle baron (Donald Crisp) whose beloved son (Alex Nicol) is a sadistic weakling. Audiences in 1955 were shocked by the scene in which Nicol has his minions hold down Stewart and repays him for a wound by shooting the hero's hand at point-blank range.

Trail-boss Vic Hansbro (Arthur Kennedy) is - as in Mann's earlier Western 'Bend of the River' in 1952 - the hero's near-equal in manliness, but turns out to be his demonic counterpart, driven by resentment of the family whose ranch he runs but will never inherit to a dirty deal involving selling guns to renegade Apaches. 'The Man from Laramie' is a taut, tragic tale with a memorable hit theme song ("The West will never see a man with so many notches on his gun") and Mann's trademarked sense of the way desperate and obsessed men relate to each other and the dangerous landscape that emphasizes their extreme psychological states.

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