Rawhide (1951)

User Rating:

7.0/10   

Director:

Henry Hathaway

Writer:

Dudley Nichols (writer)

Release Date:

25 March 1951 (USA)

Genre:

Drama | Romance | Western

Plot:

A stagecoach stop employee and a stranded woman traveler find themselves at the mercy of four desperate outlaws intent on robbing the next day's gold shipment.

Plot Keywords:

Outlaw | Stagecoach | Gold | Captive | Passenger

Cast

Tyrone Power	...	Tom Owens
Susan Hayward	...	Vinnie Holt
Hugh Marlowe	...	Zimmerman / Deputy sheriff Ben Miles
Dean Jagger	...	Yancy
Edgar Buchanan	...	Sam Todd (Rawhide stationmaster)
Jack Elam	...	Tevis
George Tobias	...	Gratz
Jeff Corey	...	Luke Davis
James Millican	...	Tex Squires
Louis Jean Heydt	...	Fickert ('New York Herald')
William Haade	...	Gil Scott (stagecoach driver)
Milton R. Corey Sr.	...	Dr. Tucker
Kenneth Tobey	...	Lt. Wingate (as Ken Tobey)
Dan White	...	Gilchrist
Max Terhune	...	Miner

Also Known As:

Desperate Siege (USA) (reissue title)

Runtime:

89 min | 87 min (FMC Library Print)

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Recording)

Certification:

West Germany:16 (nf) | Finland:(Banned) (1951-1963) | Finland:K-16 | Norway:16 | Spain:7 | Sweden:15 | USA:Unrated

Filming Locations:

Lone Pine, California, USA

Company:

Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation

Trivia:

Everett Sloane was originally cast as Tevis, but after a action scene in which Hayward was unhappy with his roughness when he threw her to the floor, he was replaced by Jack Elam.

Quotes:

Tom Owens: What are you doing?
Vinnie Holt: I'm taking this room.
Tom Owens: I'm sorry, this is mine.
Vinnie Holt: [Authoritatively] Not tonight, it's not!

Movie Connections:

Remake of Show Them No Mercy! (1935)

Predictable, perhaps, but not exactly conventional

This film, sometimes predictable, is nonetheless quite watchable. And then, of course, if you start to think about what's happening on screen and the metaphorical possibilities thereof, you may feel like you've discovered a hidden gem.

Susan Hayward aficionados (I won't exactly say fans) will never be bored, as Miss Hayward gives it her typical spitfire all from the get-go, her performance liberally punctuated with her signature eye-squints, chin-jerks and tit-thrusts.

Compared to Hayward, in fact (and this hardly seems accidental), Tyrone Power's character is seen as quite emasculated. From the beginning of the film he has "lost" his gun, and it is Hayward, not he, who takes out the last bad guy. One scene has him preparing bacon, beans and coffee for the bandits that have wrought such murder and mayhem on the stage coach depot he reluctantly manages.

Visually, the film is quite striking, with an impressive mise-en-scène that alternates between wide shots expressing the vastness and solitude of the West and extreme--and unusually-constructed--close-ups that explore characters both good and evil and as well make us a part of the growing intimacy between Hayward and Power.

Finally, fans of gunplay will thrill to the extremity of the scene where one particularly incorrigible gunman makes his last stand by taking pot-shots at Hayward's toddler ward, Callie.