Pursued (1947)

Brought up by a neighboring family in the 1880s, an orphan grows up haunted by nightmares of a childhood trauma in which his own family was killed.

Director:

Raoul Walsh

Writer:

Niven Busch (screenplay)

Stars:

Teresa Wright, Robert Mitchum, Judith Anderson

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Teresa Wright	...	Thor
Robert Mitchum	...	Jeb
Judith Anderson	...	Mrs. Callum
Dean Jagger	...	Grant
Alan Hale	...	Jake Dingle
John Rodney	...	Adam
Harry Carey Jr.	...	Prentice
Clifton Young	...	The Sergeant
Ernest Severn	...	Jeb, age 11
Charles Bates	...	Adam, age 11
Peggy Miller	...	Thor, age 10
Norman Jolley	...	A Callum
Lane Chandler	...	A Callum
Elmer Ellingwood	...	A Callum
Jack Montgomery	...	A Callum

Storyline

In the 1880s orphan Jeb Rand is raised by the Callum family on their horse ranch after his own family is killed. Jeb is haunted by this childhood trauma in a recurring nightmare of flashing spurs and confinement inside a trap door as his family is murdered. Widow Callum does her best to make Jeb feel loved as he is growing up, but the young man stubbornly maintains a sense of his own identity. While he has great affection for his foster-sister Thor, his relationship with her brother Adam is tenuous at best, especially when Jeb blames him for shooting the colt that he was riding. Although Mrs. Callum blames the incident on deer hunters, she is aware that the shooting was actually the attempted murder of the youngster by her brother-in-law Grant, a shadowy figure who, for vague reasons, is determined to hurt Jeb. Jeb loses a coin flip with Adam, and becomes the designated family volunteer to fight in the Spanish-American War. Jeb returns a hero, but does not find happiness. Although ...

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Plot Keywords:

childhood trauma | nightmare | colt | horse ranch | revenge | 

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Genres:

Drama | Romance | Thriller | Western

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Certificate:

Approved

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

2 March 1947 (USA)

Also Known As:

La vallée de la peur

Filming Locations:

Gallup, New Mexico, USA

Company Credits

Production Co:

United States Pictures, Warner Bros

Technical Specs

Runtime:

101 min

Sound Mix:

Mono (RCA Sound System)

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

The film Jim Morrison (lead singer of The Doors) watched on the night he died (July 3, 1971).

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Goofs

After Adam is shot, a dummy is used to show his body rolling down the hill. The incline is not great and a stuntman could easily have been used, so the obvious dummy is a jarring note.

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Quotes

Mrs. Callum: [to Jeb] A person's gotta find his own answers. We're alone... each of us. Each in a different way.

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Connections

Featured in Grass (1999)

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Soundtracks

"Wedding March"
(uncredited)
Written by Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy
Incorporated in score during Thor's marriage to Jeb. in Steiner

User Reviews

Startlingly Good Noir Western.

Pursued (1947), a noir Western directed by the great Raoul Walsh and stars Robert Mitchum, Teresa Wright and Judith Anderson.

The plot is simple enough: Set in New Mexico (and shot there too) around the turn of the century and told in flashback, the film tells the story of Jeb Rand (Robert Mitchum) whose family was murdered when he was a small boy. The sight of this haunts him, which manifests itself in bad dreams, into adulthood, as he is brought up by Mrs. Callum (Judith Anderson) and her two children, including Thor (Teresa Wright), whom he falls in love with. When the killers (led by the effectively cool Dean Jagger) discover that he exists and the only Rand left, they vow to kill him too. But Rand also has other problems to sort out, especially his jealous half-brother Adam Callum (John Rodney).

The photography, by the esteemed James Wong Howe is breathtaking, all harsh black-and-white vistas; the editing too, by Christian Nyby (who would later go on to take credit for directing the classic science fiction film The Thing from Another World! [1951]) is above average, and the music by Max Steiner is up to the same high standard of the of his other classic scores. The direction is brilliantly handled by Walsh and the screenplay by Niven Busch throws up more than a few surprises. Robert Mitchum is his usual laconic self (which is no bad thing!), Judith Anderson as always is excellent, Teresa Wright is good as Mitchum's half-sister and love and Dean Jagger, Alan Hale and Harry Carey Jr. all turn in memorable performances. The film itself has been influential, being homage in Sergio Leone's Once Upon a Time in the West and Martin Scorsese has talked about his great admiration for it. This was also, tragically, the last movie "The Doors" singer Jim Morrison watched before he did on July 3, 1971. Pursued is an extremely good Western noir that deserves to be much more well known than it is and I strongly urge fans of either Westerns or noir's to see it.