The Violent Men (1955)

Better Late Then Never

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

Despite a terrific cast and some excellent location work Rudolph Mate's "The Violent Men" isn't much of a western. It's another range-war picture with all the inevitable clichés. It's partly redeemed, as so many films were, by the performances of Edward G as a greedy cattle-baron and Barbara Stanwyck as his scheming wife. Glenn Ford is the hero and he adds a few much needed shades of gray to the part. The two credited DoP's were Burnett Guffey and W. Howard Greene. Perhaps if someone other than Mate had directed it might have felt fresher; maybe it needed someone like Delmer Daves. It's not a total failure, though; this kind of western is basically critic-proof, building as it does to a suitably operatic climax with some decent action scenes along the way.

Much better than your average western of the 1950s. Barbara Stanwyck landed one of her best roles in years as a selfish, conniving,brutal woman who will do nothing to stop her desire to control the land even meaning a range war and attempting to get rid of husband, Edward G. Robinson, so that she can wed his brother, Brian Keith.This excellent story has just about everything you would want in a film. There is treachery and there is Glenn Ford, a civil war veteran ready to head east only to be drawn into the conflict. When he sees the brutality of the Robinson Family, he turns to the same violence and begins to wreak havoc on the tormentors themselves. Stanwyck sees this escalating opportunity to further her own ruthless plans.Dianne Foster co-stars as the daughter who knows what has been going on between the Stanwyck character, her mother, and Keith, her uncle.Very well done film, action packed, engrossing and a pleasure seeing.

The title for this film, "The Violent Men" (1955), couldn't be more accurate for what transpires during its running time. It contains a body count that would make Quentin Tarantino envious and there's little letup in the action throughout its convoluted plot. Edward G. Robinson plays a wheelchair-bound cattle baron who's hell-bent on expanding his ranch. Egging him on is his wife, rotten-to-the-core Barbara Stanwyck at her conniving best. She's really in love with his brother, the equally rotten and despicable Brian Keith. Ms. Stanwyck's real aim is to have poor old Edward G. do all the dirty work to gain the entire "Big Valley" for her and then get rid of him. What girl would want to be married to a crippled old man anyway? Standing in the way of Barbara and Brian's plans is Glenn Ford as an honest cattle rancher who doesn't seem to want to put up much of a fight (at first). What they don't know is that he's an experienced U.S. Army Cavalry officer who specialized in well-planned ambushes and raids during the Civil War. He's the last person they should be messing with, and they learn that fact the hard way. So does Richard Jaeckel who plays a hired gun and ends up in the city morgue after killing one of Ford's men. There's also a "fly-in-the-ointment" character: Dianne Foster as Barbara and Edward G.'s daughter. She knows her mother is cheating on her father with Uncle Brian, but she can't bring herself to spill the beans to the old man. She's also good-looking enough to spark a love interest with rival rancher Ford. After the local crooked sheriff hires an army of killers to aid and abet Robinson's side in the range war, the action and violence ratchets up to "11" (as Spinal Tap would say) and Mr. Ford begrudgingly shows off his skills. He doesn't really like killing people, but a man's got to do what a man's got to do, pardner. In the end, Brian Keith makes the bonehead mistake of facing Ford in a duel and gets a bullet through the heart. Ms. Stanwyck doesn't survive her wicked evil ways either and ends up face down in the mud. While all this is happening, men are getting burned to death, whipped to death, shot in the head etc. There's even plenty of spurting blood, which was unusual in westerns before director Sam Peckinpah came along. The film was directed by Rudolph Mate. His best work was the famous thriller "D.O.A." but this movie is certainly a worthy effort. Ms. Stanwyck soon made the switch to television after this film and ended up with her own "Big Valley." It was a lot more peaceful there than anything in this movie.

John Parrish is an ex Union officer who plans to sell his ranch and land to the Wilkison's over at Anchor. The trouble is that the price being offered is way too low and when they start to bully Parrish and his workers, he has a change of heart, particularly when things take a brutal turn for the worse.Originally after watching this one I had a sense of frustration, chiefly because of the cast that was involved. When you got Edward G. Robinson, Glenn Ford and Barbara Stanwyck in the same movie, you hope that they get a story and script from which to excel. Sadly they don't get chance to produce a Western classic worthy of multiple revisits, or is that my over expectation is doing it a disservice? Well I slept on it and decided to ponder further about the picture. I think yes it's fair to say that the actors in question deserved a better story from which to work from, it is, when all is said and done, a plot that has been milked for all it's worth, and then some. But The Violent Men is still a very rewarding film regardless of the missed opportunities evident with the production.Glenn Ford as Parrish is as cool as an Eskimo's nose throughout, and it's always great to see Babs Stanwyck playing a bitch because she's good at it. While Eddie G, when one gets used to him being in a Western, is fine in what is an under written part. Robinson, who stepped in at the last minute when first choice as Lee Wilkison, Broderick Crawford got injured, is the one who is short changed the most by the makers, even supporting characters such as the devilish Wade Matlock {a grinning delight from the reliable Richard Jaeckel} and Judith Wilkison {a radiant Dianne Foster} get something to leave an impression with. But for what it is, Robinson's crutch toting "bad" guy is at the least memorable for all the right reasons.Not shy on action and gun play, it's with the twists and almost Shakespearean tragedies that Rudolph Maté's film rises above the mundane, with all of it gorgeously framed by Burnett Guffey's stunning cinematography. Lone Pine in Alabama has been used on many a Western picture {see Seven Men From Now for another glorious use of it}, but here Guffey really excels and manages to dazzle the eyes at every turn. The Violent Men isn't a great Western picture, and perhaps a better director than Maté could have really given Donald Hamilton's {The Big Country} novel an adaptation to be proud of. But for every niggle and irk I personally had with it, I found two more reasons to actually really like it, so that it be, it's recommended, for sure. 7/10