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62 out of 62 people found the following review useful:
An Unappreciated Classic!, 6 July 2011
8/10
Author: jpdoherty from Ireland

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

A dark grim yet gritty movie is probably the best way to describe this fairly forgotten and under appreciated jewel of a western. Produced by Nicholas Nayfack for MGM in 1950 the picture - just like "Winchester 73" and "The Gunfighter" made the same year - marked the coming of age of the American western. DEVIL'S DOORWAY was the first movie which undertook to depict - in graphic terms - the plight of the native American in the west of the 1860s. It was also the first western to be directed by Anthony Mann who alongside John Ford would become the genre's most iconic director with his masterpiece "Winchester 73" and thereafter with his fruitful working relationship with actor James Stewart that would produce some of the finest westerns ever made like "Bend Of The River", "The Far Country" and the brilliant "Naked Spur". Nicely written for the screen by Guy Trosperm DEVIL'S DOORWAY was stunningly photographed in glorious Black & White in Aspen, Colorado by John Alton and was complimented with a splendid atmospheric score - featuring an exciting Indian motif - by Russian composer Daniele Amfitheathrof.

With the Congressional Medal of Honour pinned to his Union tunic distinguished Shoshone Indian Sergeant Major Lance Poole (Robert Taylor) returns home from the war between the States to his people in his beautiful valley of Sweet Meadow. He is greeted by his aged and ailing father (Fritz Leiber) ("You are home - you are again an Indian"). But prejudice against the tribe is beginning to take hold in the nearby town instigated and then exacerbated by a shady Indian hating lawyer Verne Coolin (Louis Calhern). Things really come to a head when sheep-men arrive and need to graze their herds on Sweet Meadow but Lance will not allow it and orders them off his property ("This is my land and you're trespassing"). However they are encouraged by Coolin to take the land since the Homestead Act of the period states that it is forbidden for an Indian to own any land. An enraged Lance takes up arms and leads his people against the interlopers (a well executed battle scene). Finally with many deaths on each side the army are sent for to quell the fighting which leads to a tragic finale. Lance settles his score with Coolin before the final shootout with the army which sees him and his braves being killed, his village destroyed and the tribe - what's left of them - being escorted to the reservation.

DEVIL'S DOORWAY is a superb western and deserves to be rediscovered. With Mann's earlier noir successes "T Men" (1947) and "Raw Deal" ('48) DEVIL'S DOORWAY contains wonderful noirish moments of outstanding quality such as in the bruising fist fight sequence in the Saloon between Taylor and gunman James Milican with its low angle camera and arresting use of light and shadow and again later for scenes inside the dimly lit Indian shacks. The acting throughout is splendid all round. Taylor arguably gives the performance of his long career in an unusual bit of casting. Eschewing his handsome MGM glamour-boy image (he was Gable's chief rival at the studio) he turns in a powerful and striking portrayal of great depth and substance. His performance as a man who sees his beloved valley being ripped out from under him and his people is heartfelt and sincere. Excellent too is Louis Calhern as the antagonistic racist lawyer. His part not being very far removed from his brilliant shady lawyer in the studio's "Asphalt Jungle" the same year.

So here is a powerfully evocative and accomplished movie that was strikingly bold for its time and today remains compelling in its stark presentation. Directed by a man who was on the verge of western movie greatness DEVIL'S DOORWAY is a movie that shouldn't be missed by anyone who cares about the American western. It is a movie that with some reassessment and a little more exposure could easily become one of Hollywood's greatest achievements and perhaps even Mann's real masterpiece. A movie that makes the final and prophetic line in the picture that bit more fitting..........

"IT WOULD BE TOO BAD IF WE SHOULD EVER FORGET".

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48 out of 51 people found the following review useful:
one of the best, 25 May 2001
10/10
Author: omerie from under the arch

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

wow - I'm not normally a big fan of westerns, but this one seems to excel in all departments. At first I was wondering if I would buy Robert Taylor as a full-blooded Native American character, but it's a testament to the depth and range of his talent that he had me convinced within the first minute of his screen time, without even a momentary falter throughout the rest of the film. The cinematography is nothing short of spectacular, sometimes even haunting; certain outdoor scenes are as memorable as masterpiece landscape paintings (and we're talking black & white here!)

The dramatic storyline is excellent and never misses a beat; character motivations may be surprising at times, yet they remain dramatically valid and consistent throughout the film. Even when the main character makes certain decisions with which you may not agree, you'll still understand why he does what he does.

The ending is one of the best that I know of; the final dialogue is as prophetic as it is unforgettable. I watched this movie on TCM knowing very little about it before I sat down in front of the tube, and I'm thrilled to say that I thoroughly enjoyed watching an actual 10/10. I'm really looking forward to seeing it again!

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39 out of 44 people found the following review useful:
another under-appreciated classic, 2 October 2002
Author: SHAWFAN from United States

Your one other comment on this film so far (Under the Arch) sums up my feelings entirely. Why this masterpiece of a film is not mentioned in the same historical discussions of great westerns as Stagecoach, The Oxbow Incident, High Noon, Treasure of the Sierra Madre, etc. is beyond me. But of course it was made by Anthony Mann and that says it all. Those little known episodes in our nation's history in which greedy white men dispossessed cooperative and non-violent native Americans can never be re-told often enough; such as when Andrew Jackson, despite a Supreme Court decision to the contrary, conspired in the 1820s with the land robbers so as to allow those white men to exploit the state's mineral wealth in the 1820s. The peaceful and civil Cherokees were driven out of their Carolina homelands and into concentration camps. (Hitler had nothing on Andrew Jackson.) From there the Cherokees were driven into Florida and then on to Oklahoma via the "Trail of Tears." And the Devil's Doorway is such a classic tale of land-grabbing, ethnic cleansing, bigotry, and high-handed discriminatory bureaucracy as to make your flesh creep. See it.

PS I recently (2009) saw Anthony Mann's Cimarron (1960, his last Western) for the first time and read all the many reviews of it. Many went into great depth as to Mann and his career, listing and evaluating many of his previous films. Not one of them mentioned this film, perhaps his greatest! So even among Mann aficionados one of his greatest accomplishments has fallen by the wayside and into the memory hole! What can be done about this to bring back such a classic and restore it to its rightful place in film history?

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19 out of 22 people found the following review useful:
The tragedy of a man who had a naive dream., 14 August 2005
Author: tmwest from S. Paulo, Brazil

After seeing quite a lot of westerns about Native Americans I can say that not one of them made such an impact on me as this one. Broken Arrow was quite good and so was Dance with Wolves, but none of them show in such a shocking way the tragedy that fell upon this people with the colonization of the west. Robert Taylor is unbelievably convincing as a Native American who fought in the war and got a Congressional Medal of Honor. He returns to his people thinking that a new era is going to start where they will be treated as equals, but soon all his plans go down the drain. Louis Calhern is a bigoted lawyer and Paula Raymond the nice lawyer that helps Taylor. When Taylor says to Raymond that in 100 years they could have a different relationship, instinctively I asked myself if that really happened. No doubt things improved a lot, they are still far from perfect but at least a film like this one could be made in 1950 and be accepted as true. Anthony Mann was at his best on westerns with a dark side and here he shows us the talent that would be responsible for so many great films that were yet to come.

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14 out of 16 people found the following review useful:
The law says an Indian ain't got no more rights than a dog., 9 April 2010
9/10
Author: JohnRouseMerriottChard from United Kingdom

Devil's Doorway is directed by Anthony Mann. It stars Robert Taylor as Lance Poole, a Shoshone Indian who returns home to Medicine-Bow from the American Civil War after a three year stint, and a veteran of three major conflicts. Awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor he rightfully expects to be able to retire to a peaceful life back on the family land. However, all his hopes and dreams are shattered by bigotry and greed as new laws are ushered in to deprive the Native Indians land rights.

Biting and cutting, Devil's Doorway is a Civil Rights Western that, boldly for its time, looks at the injustices done to Native Americans. Very much grim in texture, it's no surprise to see Anthony Mann at the helm for this material. Mann of course would go on to become a Western genre darling for his run of "Adult Westerns" he would do with James Stewart. Prior to this Mann had showed himself to have a keen eye for tough pieces with dark themes in a few well regarded film noir movies. So this was right up his street, in fact a glance at his output shows him to be something of a master when it comes to showing minority groups sympathetically. MGM were nervous tho, unsure as if taking the Western in this direction was the way to go, they pulled it from release in 1949. But after the impact that Delmer Daves' similar themed Broken Arrow made the following year, they ushered it out and the film promptly got lost amongst the plaudits for the James Stewart starrer. That's a shame because this is fit to sit alongside the best work Mann has done.

Filmed in black & white, the film has beautiful landscapes that belie the bleak road the movie ultimately turns down. Shot on location at Aspen and Grand Junction in Colorado (the talented John Alton on cinematography), the film also manages to rise above its obvious eyebrow raising piece of casting. Robert Taylor always had his critics, hell I'm sometimes one of them, but here as he is cast against type as a Shoshone Indian, he gives the character conviction and a stoic nobility that really makes it work. Some of his scenes with the beautiful Paula Raymond (playing his lawyer Orrie Masters) are a lesson in maximum impact garnered from emotional restraint. You will be aware of the fluctuating skin pigmentation he has throughout the movie, but honestly look into his eyes and feel the confliction and loyalty and you really will not care.

Scripted by Guy Trosper (Birdman of Alcatraz), the screenplay is unflinching in showing how badly the Native Americans were treated. Throw that in with Alton's other gift, that of the dusty barren land shot, and you got a very film noir feel to the movie. Something which not only is unique, but something that also showed a shift in the Hollywood Oater. We now get brains to match the action and aesthetics of the Western movie. Not that this is found wanting for action, Mann doesn't short change here either, with a dynamite led offensive purely adrenalin pumping.

A fine fine movie, an important movie in fact. One that is in desperate need of more exposure. Still awaiting a widespread home format disc release, I quote Orrie Masters from the movie..."It would be too bad if we ever forget".... that applies to both the theme of the piece and the actual movie itself. 9/10

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14 out of 17 people found the following review useful:
A wonderfully understated performance by Robert Taylor as a Shoshone Indian., 26 March 2005
10/10
Author: mamalv from United States

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

This is one of the most underrated of all the westerns of the decade. Much before its time in the realm of bigotry and racism, it is truly a masterpiece. The black and white photography is magnificent, the scenery amazing, and Robert Taylor with very little makeup, is truly the Shoshone he plays, his features perfect for the part. Lance Poole comes back from the war fighting side by side with whites in the Union forces and winning the Congressional Medal of Honor. He has changed, thinking that the world has changed with him. He returns to Sweet Meadows, the land of his father, and only wants to build upon the land a cattle ranch. He does so successfully for 5 years until the white settlers come to homestead and he finds that because he is an Indian, he is not entitled to his own land. He hires a lawyer, played well by Paula Raymond, but she is also unable to change the laws which lead to bloody battles over the land, headed by another lawyer, Louis Calhern, a total bigot and instigator. Calhern is convincing as the lawyer who hates the success of the Indian, and plans his demise. As time goes along Lance realizes that nothing has changed and that he must make a last stand. Raymond tries to stop him, because she is drawn to him, and I suspect loves him, but the times would never allow her to be with him. She goes to him at the burned out ranch, and he embraces her telling her that she could never be with him, but maybe 100 years from now it would have been possible. The film was much ahead of its time, and I consider it to be one of the finest westerns ever made, and Taylor's performance one of sensitivity and strength. So overlooked it is a crime.

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12 out of 15 people found the following review useful:
A story which is relevant today...., 7 September 2005
Author: dbdumonteil

Another strong western by Anthony Mann.But like any intelligent western,this story is eternal.A man who fought for his country and who is denied the most legitimate of all his rights,just because he is an Indian:to own a little bit of the land to which he had given the most beautiful years of his life.That was the story of Mervyn Le Roy's "I'm fugitive from a chain gang" when Paul Muni was trying to sell his medals to survive.That would be the story of Liam Neeson in "Suspect" ,once a Vietnam veteran,now one of the last lonely and wretched .

Robert Taylor is extremely convincing,mainly when he is speaking of the land,of the way the Indians love it,of their communion with nature. We find the same emotion in Delmer Daves' "Broken arrow" ,released the same year.

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15 out of 21 people found the following review useful:
My Own Bit of Land, 20 June 2006
10/10
Author: bkoganbing from Buffalo, New York

Anthony Mann's first western maybe one of the best ever done and sad to say it was probably overshadowed by the more popular Broken Arrow which also dealt sympathetically with the plight of the American Indian.

Right after Devil's Doorway Mann did Winchester 73 and a whole slew of films with James Stewart, mostly westerns and well received ones at that. Devil's Doorway should be grouped with those films as well as a cinema classic. My guess is that it is because Mann never did another film with Robert Taylor. If anyone knows why, please let me know.

Robert Taylor gives one of his best screen performances as Lance Poole, Union Army veteran and Congressional Medal of Honor winner and full blooded Shoshoni Indian. He's returned to his ranch in Wyoming hoping to pick up the pieces of his civilian life. Taylor has bought into the ideals of the Civil War. He in fact went to war to free another group of people from slavery.

It's one big disillusioning process as he discovers that Indians need not apply for a piece of the American dream. The Homestead Act which Abraham Lincoln signed during the Civil War specifically excludes Indians from its provisions.

Louis Calhern portrays one of the most loathsome villains of his career as Verne Coolan, a lawyer who apparently for no other reason than his own hatred of the red man, stirs up hatred and resentment against Taylor and the Shoshonis. He brings in sheepherders to homestead in the valley that Poole has his ranch on, knowing full well it will be the start of a range war with racial overtones. The entrance to Taylor's valley is known as the Devil's Doorway.

Calhern has an equally loathsome henchman played by James Millican who starts a bar fight that Taylor finishes. It's a brutal one, ranking right up there with the one in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.

Other noteworthy performances are by Edgar Buchanan as the town marshal who is torn between his friendship for Taylor and the discriminatory law he's sworn to enforce. Also Paula Raymond and Spring Byington as a female attorney and her mother, quite radical in those days. Although overtly Taylor and Raymond have a business relationship, there is a gleam in Raymond's eyes whenever Taylor's around.

Oddly enough six years later Taylor saw cinematically how the other half lived when in The Last Hunt he played buffalo hunter Charlie Gilson who had a hate for the Indian the equal of Calhern's here.

Although Broken Arrow got all the acclaim and deserved it, it is a pity that Devil's Doorway did not get more attention. Catch this very special film whenever it is broadcast.

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9 out of 12 people found the following review useful:
Tough, honest, gritty and real, totally lacking in sentimentality., 3 February 2006
10/10
Author: mhall-17 from United States

I saw this film as a teenager and immediately recognized it as the real thing. This movie had more atomic weight in its characters,setting, plot and theme than most other films of its time (and the year 1950 was indeed a most impressive time for westerns). Its frank and honest treatment of racism and injustice rang true from beginning to end. Taylor was ,as usual, a tough and gritty hero with three dimensions. Louis Calhern filled the role of chief villain and head bigot impeccably.The film was tough, honest, gritty and real; moreover, it was totally devoid of sentimentality or clichés. I wonder if it wouldeven have been made just two years later-during the McCarthy era.Robert Taylor had clearly evolved from a "pretty boy" leading man of the 1930s into a believable ,masculine hero for a tough-minded postwar film environment.

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5 out of 5 people found the following review useful:
Excellent., 27 May 2010
8/10
Author: planktonrules from Bradenton, Florida

While some might balk at the idea of Robert Taylor playing an American Indian, such casting was pretty typical of this era--with folks like Rock Hudson and Paul Newman cast as Indians as well! Plus, while the casting is poor, the film does have a lot in its favor. The biggest plus is that the American Indian is portrayed VERY sympathetically here and is a film about intolerance and prejudice--and makes some excellent points to counter the prevailing "evil and stupid Indian" image many films of the day. Plus, although Taylor is an Anglo with an aquiline nose and blue eyes, the film manages to have him appear rather Indian-like--and his craggy middle-aged good looks helped--along with gobs of skin paint! I cannot speak for American Indians, but I assume most would appreciate the film's message and overlook the casting--as there simply wasn't any better sort of film about them made at the time--and very, very few since.

The film begins with Taylor returning home after several years absence serving in the Union army during the Civil War. Along the way, he developed a bit of naiveté and assumes his being a sergeant in the military and living out the White American dream that he'd be accorded respect and equal treatment at home. However, there's an ill-will brewing and instead of receiving honor for his service (which had earned him the Medal of Honor--the nation's highest military award), he will face a lot of unreasoning hate. At the heart of this is a scum-bag lawyer (imagine that!) who is bent on stirring up the Whites against the Indians--mostly so he man make himself rich in the process.

I could say more to the plot, as there is quite a bit more to the film, but I really don't want to spoil the film. Suffice to say that it is very well written--mostly because it is NOT a movie with a clear message that the settlers were all evil and the Shoshone were perfect and noble. I liked this, as both sides had a point--though the Natives clearly were having their rights cast aside in the process. The characters, as a result, were multidimensional and interesting.

Overall, if you are a bit tired of cookie-cutter westerns and are looking for something a bit different, "Devil's Doorway" is a pretty good bet.

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