Blood on the Moon (1948)

Intense, gripping, stylish and poignant

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

It's a mild crowd pleaser for people who are exhausted by blockbusters.

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

One of the better westerns from RKO Radio Pictures. Credit director Robert Wise for this sagebrush classic starring Robert Mitchum as a lonely drifter named Jim Garry, who gets involved with a fast talking friend, Tate Riling (Robert Preston), as a conflict between cattleman and homesteaders is warming up. Of course, Riling always has a way of getting in the middle of shady schemes involving underhanded money. Garry meets a cattle owner John Lufton (Tom Tully), who's attitude grows hostile after suspecting that his new friend is in cahoots with Riling trying to get his herd for cheap. This black and white western is based on a novel by Luke Short and is filmed in the scenic area of Sedona, Arizona at Red Rock Crossing. BLOOD on the MOON will bring back memories of Saturday afternoons at the movies.A star filled cast is rounded out with: Barbara Bel Geddes, Frank Faylen, Walter Brennan, Phyliss Thaxter, Harry Carey, Jr., Charles McGraw and Iron Eyes Cody.

Long before her days as the noble but strong willed Miss Ellie on "Dallas" and with a stage career not yet legendary, Barbara Bel Geddes scored brief success in films. She scored an Oscar nomination as the "I" who "Remembered Mama" and got all tough with Robert Mitchum in this film noir western. When first seen, she's shooting at Mitchum, purposely missing but with intent of scaring him away. He shoots back, basically knocking her down, but when next seen, she knocks the hat off his head with a single shot, leaving him hiding the fact that he's petrified. Obviously, there are sparks, but Bel Geddes won't be putting down her rifle anytime soon as she deals with the corruption of fear mongering Robert Preston who uses Mitchum in his scheme to forge locales to sell him their cattle.While plots like this have turned up in westerns ever since the creation of the genre, never had it been done with such a psychological darkness. Film noir had been around for a few years and elements of the darkness at dawn under a western moon were turning up in westerns, most notably in "Pursued", a western thriller that Mitchum had made the year before. Robert Wise, a former film editor who added noir elements into the horror genre, now did the same thing here, and the results are successful, if not completely satisfying. Shadows in the snow this could have been called, with Preston a very subtle villain and Tom Tully and Phyllis Thaxter are very good as the father and sister whom Bel Geddes has toughened up to protect. Walter Brennan is also aboard as a local wise man who provides a moral guide for the developers characters.So how does, exactly, a standard western plot become film noir? The psychological degradation of seemingly decent characters, others having to take steps to bring the evil forces down by reaching into their own psyche, and anti-heroes who keep so much inside. Moody photography, a screenplay that goes deeper into the darkness inside all mankind, and a direction that moves the camera around like it was reading everybody's minds and often became the standing replacement where a character was speaking from. This genre hit its height with "The Furies" two years later, but "Blood on the Sun" successfully reveals the important elements that make film noir tick, western or not, and would be a great guide to filmmakers of the future.

Directed by Robert Wise, this slightly above average Western drama is dripping with testosterone, though its story is more film noir- like than anything else. The plot follows Jim Garry (Robert Mitchum) as a man who finds himself in the middle of the familiar battle between a rancher and some homesteaders. With few options given the failures in his past, he ventures out to accept a job with an old friend, Tate Riling (Robert Preston).Along the way, Garry encounters his friend's opposition, John Lufton (Tom Tully), and his two daughters, Amy (Barbara Bel Geddes) and Carol (Phyllis Thaxter). Riling has riled up fellow homesteaders like Kris Barden (Walter Brennan) to deny Lufton the land he needs for grazing his cattle. However, Riling has an ulterior motive which, once Garry learns of it, causes conflict between the two old friends. Additionally, Garry has discovered a hidden division between Lufton's daughters. Frank Faylen plays Jake Pindalest, the government's representative on the Indian reservation for which Lufton's cattle is intended; he's involved with Riling as well.Garry figures out that Riling's motive for involving the homesteaders in a fight against Lufton is a front for his own selfish plans to become the wealthy middleman in Lufton's cattle sale to the government. Riling is not only using Lufton's daughter Carol, pretending to be in love with her in order to gain inside information, but he's also hired gunmen, like Garry, to ensure his plans are carried out. But Garry, even though he's tough & a skilled shot, is not a killer like the others Riling has hired, and learns that the $10,000 he's been offered is for him to be Riling's front, the middleman between Lufton's transaction with Pindalest, who's also on Riling's payroll.Garry decides he's not too enamored with the deal, nor Riling anymore, and ends up saving Lufton's life in front of his daughter Amy, who had initially mistrusted Garry. A relationship begins between Garry and Amy, which will develop into a romantic one later, thanks to Garry's change of heart and open assistance to Lufton against Riling. Garry and Riling also have a "knockdown, drag out" barroom fight, which effectively ends their friendship, though it too begins one, between Garry and Barden. Garry "throws in" with Lufton by kidnapping Pindalest to delay the government's deadline for the sale of the beef.The film ends later, predictably, with a shootout typical of such stories.

This Western was directed by Robert Wise and has a fine, experienced cast. The story is a familiar one. One old chum (Preston) sends for another old chum (Mitchum) to offer him a job. The problem is that, though a juxtaposition of circumstance, it's a lousy job, even though it would pay well. Mitchum is supposed to help Preston and his gang of low lifes scam the local farmers, like Walter Brennan, and an honest rancher, Tom Tully, out of his cattle. The means are too complicated to bother explaining.It must be one of the least glamorous Westerns ever filmed. The opening shots are of Mitchum alone on horseback, riding over some dark hills in the middle of a torrent. He's drenched and uncomfortable. Few people in the story look comfortable. It's cold and turns snowy. The men are bundled up in winter clothing and wear tall ugly cowboy hats. They tend to wear chaps, which are really fit only for stylization, like Robert Duval's woolly chaps in the original "True Grit." In a minor role, Charles McGraw lumbers around in what looks like a bear costume, growling his observations.The women look delicate though. Barbara Bel Geddes is attractive and ends her lines with the terminal contours of an upper-class school girl from Rosemary Hall. Phyllis Thaxter, I think, is miscast as Preston's naive girl friend. She's purity personified and it's hard to swallow her attraction to a lying, mustachioed villain like Preston. Lust is not exactly her forte.Many of the scenes take place at night and everything looks depressing. It captures the atmosphere all right but the atmosphere is something from Dante's Purgatorio.In the course of the tale, Mitchum changes his mind, sides with the good guys, has a brutal fist fight with Preston, finally has a shoot out with the villains, and ascends Mount Purgatory to the peaceful summit, hand in hand with Bel Geddes.There's a lot of energy on screen but little of it looks original. Mitchum is a bit plump and sleepier than in some of his other work. But it must be said that after that unsparing, barbaric fight in the bar room, Mitchum and the make up department, allowed him to look like hell, his long hair hanging in strands over his ears, sweating and panting as the usual heroes never do. There are also some impressive shots of a pursuit through the snow. All of it might have been better done in color.