Hangman's Knot (1952)

Director:

Roy Huggins

Writer:

Roy Huggins (written by)

Release Date:

15 November 1952 (USA)

Genre:

Western

Tagline:

The West's Most Spectacular Star--in His Most Spectacular Story!

Plot:

A Confederate Major and his troops are falsely lead to believe the Civil War is not over, and become wanted men when they attack a Union Army wagon train.

Plot Keywords:

Gold | Soldier | Stagecoach | Justice | Cavalry

Cast

Randolph Scott	...	Major Matt Stewart
Donna Reed	...	Molly Hull
Claude Jarman Jr.	...	Jamie Groves
Frank Faylen	...	Cass Browne
Glenn Langan	...	Capt. Petersen
Richard Denning	...	Lee Kemper
Lee Marvin	...	Rolph Bainter
Jeanette Nolan	...	Mrs. Margaret Harris
Clem Bevans	...	Plunkett, the Station agent
Ray Teal	...	Quincey
Guinn 'Big Boy' Williams	...	Smitty
Monte Blue	...	Maxwell
John Call	...	Egan Walsh
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Edward Earle	...	Union Captain (uncredited)
Frank Hagney	...	Drifter (uncredited)
Reed Howes	...	Hank Fletcher (uncredited)
Post Park	...	Stage Driver (uncredited)
Frank Yaconelli	...	Drifter (uncredited)

Directed by
Roy Huggins

Writing credits
Roy Huggins		(written by)

Produced by
Harry Joe Brown	....	producer
Randolph Scott	....	associate producer

Cinematography by
Charles Lawton Jr.		(director of photography)

Film Editing by
Gene Havlick

Art Direction by
George Brooks

Set Decoration by
Frank Tuttle

Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Yakima Canutt	....	second unit director
Jack Corrick	....	assistant director

Sound Department
Frank Goodwin	....	sound engineer

Stunts
Tap Canutt	....	stunts (uncredited)
Al Wyatt Sr.	....	stunts (uncredited)

Editorial Department
Francis Cugat	....	color consultant: Technicolor

Music Department
Mischa Bakaleinikoff	....	musical director
George Duning	....	composer: stock music (uncredited)
Arthur Morton	....	composer: stock music (uncredited)
Paul Sawtell	....	composer: stock music (uncredited)
Marlin Skiles	....	composer: stock music (uncredited)

Other crew
Herbert Stewart	....	assistant to producer

Production Companies

• Columbia Pictures Corporation (presents)
• Producers-Actors Corporation (uncredited)

Distributors

• Columbia Pictures (1952) (USA) (theatrical)
• Columbia Film-Verleih (1971) (West Germany) (theatrical)
• Columbia TriStar Home Video (2004) (USA) (DVD)
• Columbia TriStar (video)
• Comet Video (????) (USA) (DVD)

Also Known As:

Runtime:

81 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Recording)

Certification:

Sweden:(Banned) | USA:Approved (PCA #15964) | Finland:(Banned) (1953) | Finland:K-15 (2006) | UK:PG (video rating) (2006) | Norway:(Banned) (1953) | West Germany:16 (nf)

Filming Locations:

Alabama Hills, Lone Pine, California, USA

Company:

Columbia Pictures Corporation

Goofs:

Revealing mistakes: The man fighting with Lee Marvin is obviously not Randolph Scott.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Hollywood Remembers Lee Marvin (2000) (TV)

Neglected Western with fascinating anticipations

This is a film that deserves to be better known, particularly by those fans of Randolph Scott's later work with director Budd Boetticher (The Tall T, Commanche Station, Ride Lonesome etc). It is a fascinating transitional work, and a one-off vehicle for Huggins, who went on to direct the Rockford Files for TV.

As Scott grew older in his acting career, he made predominately Westerns. At the same time his face grew harder, more sinewy and austere. Something of his matinee idol looks and southern accent remained, but age brought something else - a moral gravitas than added immeasurably to his on-screen presence. Finally the 'Scott character' achieved a magisterial quality - a characteristic that added immeasurably to the ironic resonance of his last film Ride The High Country.

In Hangman's Knot, Scott plays a Confederate officer who only learns that the Civil War is over after a successful action in which his group take a gold shipment from Union soldiers. He and his men agree to return home, each with their share of the booty, but run across some outlaws who corner them in a way station, laying siege to them.

This is a situation familiar to those who know those later Scott-Boetticher masterpieces, and the familiar hallmarks are already in evidence. Even the same locations are utilised. Like the later films with a different director, this is a morality play, almost a chamber drama, where Scott makes a dignified stand of principle. In Hangman's Knot, those with the dark hearts are both outside the way station's walls waiting to pounce, as well as inside (a characteristic performance by Lee Marvin, reminiscent of that he gives in The Big Heat). These are the men that Scott's character, Stewart, cannot relate to: those without honour or moral courage, greedy, cruel men. For Scott, as he says in one of those later films, 'there are some things a man can't ride around' and these are the choices that have to be made. A man needs to face up to his options in life and live with himself on or off the trail. When he tells Marvin here that he 'never really knew (him) at all', we know the moral battlelines have been drawn, just as distinctly those that existed between the warring states.

At first the gold is merely the spoils of war. Then it becomes a short cut to happiness, an unexpected reward for the men's trouble, and a compensation for the loss of the War. Finally it is just a moral encumbrance, both to body and mind. By the end of the film, as Scott and the boy let the heavy saddle bags slip off their shoulders, the sense of relief is tangible - one which isn't just physical.

A film well worth investigating, full of artistic resonance and anticipations. And if you haven't seen the later Scott-Boetticher vehicles, some of the greatest B-Westerns ever made, see this as a taster.