The Capture (1950)

This is How Movies Should Be Made

One of my all time favorites.

It isn't all that great, actually. Really cheesy and very predicable of how certain scenes are gonna turn play out. However, I guess that's the charm of it all, because I would consider this one of my guilty pleasures.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

I have been quite impressed with this one; genre-wise, it's a romance. It's a noir western, but essentially a romance, and a very wholesome and lovable movie. John Sturges made this charming and very stylish noir western with an interest in rocky landscapes and generally a very good sense of the places, and a very intriguing lead character: the oilman, successful as an one man posse, then turned cowboy to help a needy family, but firstly to redeem himself, and to expiate, and also strongly drawn by the sick passion for a widow, this with a cheap script, and happily it's not Ford's sometimes extrinsic religion (even Jory doesn't play as one of the conventional priests of that age: Fonda or Malden), and, this strangely, not the religious behavior as a distorting and possibly misguiding of the white man's conscience. The style of the movie is very grounded (from the Spanish spoken by the Mexicans in the opening scenes, to the landscape and the unflattering style of the cast's acting); everything, very cinematographic, and very appropriate. It's a director's movie, of one who turns everything into straight cinematography.The plot is quite tenebrous. The leading character resembles physically his victim, and their relation is interesting, unto tenderness, as the chased man reposes peacefully. There's the character's narration, yet some things are understated, and he might be unreliable, to the effect of ignoring himself. What does he wish? He let go his fiancée, then all of a sudden falls in love with a widow.His wedding party was so endearingly modest; and once married, he starts his chase.Though given only a supporting role, Jory is the best of the cast.The special effects were done by the Lydecker brothers. And it's a very good looking movie.

**SPOILERS** On the run from the Mexican police hungry exhausted and wounded, after getting his right arm entangled in barbwire during his escape, Lin Vanner, Lew Ayres, finds his way to Father Gomez's, Victor Jory, house in the Mexican desert. After having his arm bandaged Lin tells the man of God his tale of woe a tale that goes back over a year ago when Vanner was involved with a posse tracking down Sam Tevlin, Edwin Rand, a wanted payroll robber and murderer.Forced by his fiancée Luana, Jackie White, to join the chase after the fleeing Tevlin Lin having him cornered ends up shooting the wounded man who, like Lin has now, had a wounded right arm. It was the fact that Tevlin couldn't raise his right arm up in the air that Lin , thinking that he was about to take a shot at him, ended up blasting him. It was later when Tevlin died from his wounds that Lin started to get guilty feeling about what he did and after he refused to pick up the $2,000.00 reward that was awarded to him in getting Tevlin that Luana, disgusted with her future husbands feeling sorry for himself, walked out of on him.The movie "The Capture" then takes a different turn with Lin traveling to Tevlin's, who an American, home in Los Santos Mexico meeting his widow Ellen, Teresa Wright, and ten year old son Mike, Jimmy Hunt. Keeping his true identity from Ellen Lin tells her that he's looking for a job at her ranch as a ranch-hand using the phony name of Lindley Brown. It doesn't take that long for Ellen to find out, checking out Brown's room, that Mr. Brown is actually Lin Vanner her husbands killer. Instead of the outraged Ellen letting Lin have it, about killing her husband Sam, she instead works the guy almost into the ground with him having no idea why she's doing that.Finally realizing why Ellen is so down on him by finding that she broke into his room, and found a newspaper clipping about Lin gunning down her husband, that Lin finally let the cat out of the bag. It turns out that Sam was not only a wife beater and drunk, how did Lin know all this?, but that he spent most of his time away from Ellen and Mike hanging out and drinking the night away with the senoritas at the local bars in town.Incredibly Ellen, within minuets after he told her the truth about himself, falls heads over heels in love with Lin and in what seems like the next day get married to him! You would have thought that the movie "The Capture" would end there and then instead it continued with Lin going back to the states to find the real reason for Sam Tevlin being framed in the payroll robbery and murder of those armed guards who were delivering the cash! Lin feels that he was, without his knowledge, set up as the hit-man to do in Tevlin by the person who was****SPOILER ALERT**** the real robber and killer the VP of the company that was held up Big Earl Mahoney, Barry Kelly.You soon got lost in the film when Lin suddenly decides to become a private eye and then does his gumshoe act that was totally unconvincing as well as making the movie look ridiculous. Lin has the surviving guard of the robbery Juan Valdez, Felipe Turich, end up committing suicide by hanging himself on the church bell-tower. This happened after Lin badgered Valdez almost to death, threatening to have the disabled mans pension taken away from him, in trying to get him to open up about who really shot him and his fellow security guards! Lin who should have felt just as guilty, if not more, for his driving the innocent Veldez to kill himself like he felt guilty in shooting Sam Tevlin didn't as much as shed a tear for the poor man!Acting totally out of character Lin then crashes Big Earl's place and after showing Big Earl that he's got the goods on him, in him not Sam being the one who robbed the payroll truck, gets into a fight with Big Earl, who's twice as big as Lin, killing him by smashing a whiskey bottle over his head! It's then that the film gets back to the present with Lin holed up in Fathet Gomez's home with the Mexican police, together with Ellen trying to talk Lin into giving himself up, giving Lin just minutes to either surrender or they'll blast away. The only thing about the ending of "The Capture" is that besides being totally predictable, just by reading the movies title, is that a miracle happened for the wounded and suicidal Linn who was responsible for the death of three persons in the movie! A miracle that for some strange reason didn't happen for Sam Tevlin who didn't kill anyone! Go figure that out!

The director, John Sturges, is remembered for westerns – Gunfight at the OK Corral, The Magnificent Seven, Last Train from Gun Hill etc – and The Capture has a touch of that genre as the movie opens with Lew Ayres on the run from the Mexican Federales somewhere in those dark Mexican hills.The story is interesting on three levels: first, it has a Freudian element with Lew Ayres (playing an ex-oilman, Lin Vanner) suffering from a guilt complex, one that he acquired after killing, in haste, a man he thought was responsible for a payroll robbery; second, it's also a "whodunit" as Lin eventually tries to find out who really did steal the payroll; and third, the story is written by Niven Busch who also wrote the screenplay for Pursued, another psychological western which also starred Teresa Wright (and Robert Mitchum) in 1947.If you've seen Pursued, then you'll know that movie was photographed in very stark black and white – and a lot of it at night. This film follows that same format but, in my opinion, it was not done as well as the former movie. However, it's still good to look at.Lin Vanner tells the story mostly in flashback, while he rests at the house of a priest – and as he waits for the police to catch up with him. As stories go, it's somewhat pedestrian and predictable, but it does attempt to present for the viewer a very troubled man's need to resolve the doubts he has about personal motivation, integrity and courage. I'd seen Lew Ayres in other films, notably All Quiet on the Western Front, but I felt that other actors would have been better cast; somehow, his rendition of the character just didn't seem to be tough enough to carry on. Robert Mitchum would have been appropriate in the role, I think. Teresa Wright (as Ellen Tevlin), on the other hand, gave another competent performance as the embittered widow of the man, Sam Tevlin, whom Lin Vanner had killed. (Perhaps the studio thought it was too much to have Teresa Wright and Robert Mitchum in another psychological western so soon after Pursued?)It was great to see Duncan Renaldo (as Carlos) appear, however briefly; and, once again, Barry Kelley (as Earl Mahoney) turns up as one of the heavies that Lin Vanner must face in order to solve the puzzle and salve his conscience. And, in a surprise turnout, there's Victor Jory (one of Hollywood's long-time great character actors) as the sympathetic priest (Father Gomez) and sounding board for Lin Vanner's recounting of his miseries. I'd seen Victor Jory, in other movies, mostly as a bandit, an Indian, a hard-nosed Mexican cattleman, a cop and such like, so the role of priest was definitely different for him, but a role that he (under) played with consummate skill.For movie buffs and Sturges fans, I'd recommend this movie. If you're bored and you want to while away ninety minutes or so, you could do much worse.

I purchased this as part of a 50 Movie pack of DVD's called Action Classics. While that is not the genre I'd call it, The Capture is well worth the time.The first part of the movie deals with a US oilfield worker in 1935 Mexico. He hunts down and kills a payroll robber. The film then settles into the main part of the story. It is an introspective, psychological analysis of the consequences for himself, and those who remember the dead man. Its all about a search for meaning and truth. The Capture left me with the feeling I used to get, watching the the short stories that were the staple of anthology drama series of the 1950's -- Twilight Zone, or Zane Grey Theatre -- but of course, this feature film has better production values than a TV series. I loved the innocent thoughtful stories that don't seem to be made any more, and The Capture is a fine example them.