The Man from Laramie 1955
The film follows Anthony Mann’s James Stewart portraying depressed cowboys and Hitchcock’s self-doubting characters in parallel in the 1950s, and Anthony Mann will soon take on bigger (and perhaps less interesting) projects like El Cid (1961). The final installment of a series of outstanding westerns directed by Mann. A story reminiscent of 1971’s Get Carter, almost a film noir. While searching for the truth about his brother’s death, Will Lockhart (Stewart) finds himself entangled in the family affairs of wealthy rancher Kral Learvari, who exhibits sadistic tendencies towards his blind and beloved son (Alex Nichol). The scene where Nicol’s men are ordered to capture Stuart and shoot him in the arm as a warning is shocking to the audience of the time. Butler Vic Hansbrough (Arthur Kennedy) is almost equivalent to the protagonist in terms of masculinity (as in Mann’s 1952 western film The Bend of the River – The Bouncer Caravan), but he carries out a dirty business of selling rifles to rebellious Apaches while managing their farms. He becomes the enemy due to the resentment of a family that he will never inherit from. With its unforgettable music (“The West, you will never see a man with so many notches on his gun”) and a dangerous atmosphere that highlights how desperate and obsessive people establish relationships with each other and their extreme psychological conditions, “The Law of Revenge” became a distinctive Mann. Tense and tragic story.
