Director William Wellman is a clever and innovative guy. Who else would shoot a scene of hoodlums racing their horses away from a bank robbery with the camera placed only a few feet to the side of one horse's legs, almost at ground level, with the other hoodlums visible through the flashing legs of the nearest galloping horse? That takes a kind of reckless talent. You can't help wondering what the camerman was being paid.
On the other hand, the script itself, while suspenseful, is a bit routine and sometimes contradictory. The handful of bank robbers led by Peck, establish their bona fides early. There's the fat drunk, the would-be rapist, the naive homesick boy, the greedy gambler (Widmark), and the disheveled but fundamentally decent leader.
The dimensions are doled out piece by piece, the way the gang divides the gold they discover in the ghost town of Yellow Sky. Well, it's not entirely a ghost town since Anne Baxter and her Grandpa live there still, having dug up all that gold. The presence of the hip-swinging woman confuses everybody except the would-be rapist, who knows exactly what he wants, in addition to his share of the stolen loot.
Yet, the script is confusing too. Here's Harry Morgan -- Detective Bill Gannon or Colonel Sherman T. Potter, if you like -- "Half Pint" in this movie. The gang is stranded in the middle of a vast blazing salt flat with practically no water. It was shot in Death Valley before the company moved to the more comfortable venue of the Alabama Hills, locally called Movie Flats. The thirsty would-be rapist is angry. He might die and be skeletalized in the middle of nowhere. He points to a lizard and complains that even that lizard (Dipsosaurus dorsalis) will outlive him, so he shoots the lizard. Harry Morgan slouches towards him, ready for a fist fight, and says "that lizard wasn't doing you no harm." In other words Morgan has a kind heart. Yet he turns just as cruel and greedy as the others before, at the very end, giving up his villainous ways for no particular reason.
It's a longish movie, strung out, and unnerving in the way it shows us the disintegration of the bank robbing community, although there's never much doubt about which way things will turn. (That naive kid was dead meat the moment he maundered on about his folks back in Ohio and developed a crush on Anne Baxter. A thousand years ago, when last names were being handed out for tax purposes, "Baxter" was the feminine form of "Baker". The voices told me to just throw that in.) Peck and Baxter accidentally bump into each other one night in the barn. They don't exactly wrestle with their passions; they immediately get all hormonal, Bartholin's glands become gushers, even though there has been so set up whatever or the scene.
Wellman is no poet but he's a craftsman and has an eye for composition. The script may have kinks in it and enter the doldrums from time to time, but it's hard to criticize Wellman's handling of the material. Look at what he managed to do with "Battlefield," a movie about combat shot almost entirely on a sound stage.
On the other hand, the script itself, while suspenseful, is a bit routine and sometimes contradictory. The handful of bank robbers led by Peck, establish their bona fides early. There's the fat drunk, the would-be rapist, the naive homesick boy, the greedy gambler (Widmark), and the disheveled but fundamentally decent leader.
The dimensions are doled out piece by piece, the way the gang divides the gold they discover in the ghost town of Yellow Sky. Well, it's not entirely a ghost town since Anne Baxter and her Grandpa live there still, having dug up all that gold. The presence of the hip-swinging woman confuses everybody except the would-be rapist, who knows exactly what he wants, in addition to his share of the stolen loot.
Yet, the script is confusing too. Here's Harry Morgan -- Detective Bill Gannon or Colonel Sherman T. Potter, if you like -- "Half Pint" in this movie. The gang is stranded in the middle of a vast blazing salt flat with practically no water. It was shot in Death Valley before the company moved to the more comfortable venue of the Alabama Hills, locally called Movie Flats. The thirsty would-be rapist is angry. He might die and be skeletalized in the middle of nowhere. He points to a lizard and complains that even that lizard (Dipsosaurus dorsalis) will outlive him, so he shoots the lizard. Harry Morgan slouches towards him, ready for a fist fight, and says "that lizard wasn't doing you no harm." In other words Morgan has a kind heart. Yet he turns just as cruel and greedy as the others before, at the very end, giving up his villainous ways for no particular reason.
It's a longish movie, strung out, and unnerving in the way it shows us the disintegration of the bank robbing community, although there's never much doubt about which way things will turn. (That naive kid was dead meat the moment he maundered on about his folks back in Ohio and developed a crush on Anne Baxter. A thousand years ago, when last names were being handed out for tax purposes, "Baxter" was the feminine form of "Baker". The voices told me to just throw that in.) Peck and Baxter accidentally bump into each other one night in the barn. They don't exactly wrestle with their passions; they immediately get all hormonal, Bartholin's glands become gushers, even though there has been so set up whatever or the scene.
Wellman is no poet but he's a craftsman and has an eye for composition. The script may have kinks in it and enter the doldrums from time to time, but it's hard to criticize Wellman's handling of the material. Look at what he managed to do with "Battlefield," a movie about combat shot almost entirely on a sound stage.