1958: Man Of The West

Man Of The West (1958, Anthony Mann) 7/10


“There is a point where you either grow up and become a human being or you rot, like that bunch” (Link Jones)

One of nouvelle vague director Jean-Luc Godard’s favourite films from 1958, Man Of The West is a classic exploration of one man’s quest to discard his violent past. The film stars the asutely cast Gary Cooper as Link Jones a shy and suspicious reformed outlaw who-armed with some clothes and a satchel of money- embarks on a train to Fort Worth in searching of obtaining a school teacher for the newly created town of Good Hope: a dust bowl community shaped by modern ideas of law, justice, education and equality.

As the title states Jones is truly a “Man of the West.” Upon boarding his train at Crosscut, Jones finds difficulty in adapting to the modern claustrophobic surroundings: his ill-equipped body fights for room and space on the small seating area. Jones had suffered a similar fate upon entering the town of Crosscut, as he tried to orientate his senses within the narrow streets filled with bric-a-brac, tiny entrepenural kiosks and other trappings of late 19th century modernity.

His rural sensibilities make him easily stand out on the train; arousing the interests of a local con-artist named Sam Beasley (Arthur O’Connell)who believes he can rustle money out of Jones by selling him the services of the local saloon singer Billie Ellis (a rather wooden Julie London) :whom he claims is trained as a school teacher. But despite his lack of academic education, Jones has an innate sense of character, which leaves him anxious when the train suddenly stops to collect more fire wood from an isolated depot. As the train’s male passengers disembark to gather wood, the train is robbed by the infamous Tobin gang. Jones is briefly knocked unconscious and is dismayed to find both the train and his bag are no longer there. Furthermore, both Ellis and Beasley have also been left stranded at the rural outpost which is hundreds of miles away from the nearest town.

But in the rolling green pastures, Jones is able to use his knowledge of the environment to find an abandoned farmhouse in which he once resided. Upon entering, however Jones realizes that he and his fellow passengers are not alone: as the house is currently inhabited by the infamous outlaw Dock Tobin (a barely recognizable Lee J Cobb in an overstated performance) and his gang. On the train Beasley had briefly remarked how the area was once dominated by men like Tobin, but now has been tamed by modern law and order: casting the actions of outlaws and gunslingers like Tobin into the annals of history.

In fact Tobin himself is too a historical relic. No longer is he the fierce outlaw of yesteryear, but rather a tyrannical and aging crazed figure. Yet, despite his mental illness, the remaining remnants of his gang are still awed by his past triumphs and have pledged allegiance to him in a bizarre quasi-family structure in which he is referred to as “uncle” and his follwers are “cousins.” One such former cousin is in fact Link Jones: a man who split from Tobin’s gang in order to start afresh in the new town of Good Hope. Yet, despite all of his efforts, both Jones and the neighbours in his new home have never allowed himself to forget his past. Nor will Tobin and his sadisctic disciples.

Desperate to ensure the safety of himself and his fellow train passengers, Link lies to Dock and convinces the deluded old man that he wishes to re-join the gang,. The reunion of the elder Tobin with his favourite “nephew” inspires the drunken fool to reveal his ambitions to plunder the mining town of Lassoo. But the younger members of Tobin’s gang such as Coaley (Jack Lord) are suspicious of Links intentions, as the former gang member attempts to distance himself from his former “cousins,” while finding himself strangely lured into their world of violence, hyper-masculinity and sexual threats.

History and the attempts to reclaim one’s personal past is an underlying theme of Mann’s film. Throughout the picture Cooper’s Link Jones struggles with his former identity: stressing to Billie his maturity, his rehabilitation and the inescapable shadow of his past actions. In many ways Link Jones suffers the same fate as another complex Western character John Wayne’s former Confederate officer Ethan Edwards in John Ford’s The Searchers. Like Edwards, Jones is uncomfortable in the confines of his present-day environment. No matter how hard Jones has tried to alter his attitudes and values to those of modern civility, he is still drawn to the expressive acts of physical violence which men such as Coaley so prominently display and engage in. For Jones, like Edwards, the open range is his home and the locale where he feels most comfortable; yet despite the spaciousness of the Tobin’s property he is unable to escape, even under the cover of night. Like his past, he is bound in symbolic chains to this environment and only through a cathartic purging of his past can he cleanse his soul and truly start anew.

As the group travel further toward Lassoo the environment attunes to the men’s souls: becoming harsher and more dearth in appearance as they travel further away from a domesticated and tamed civilized world. The rolling hills outside Tobin’s base are replaced by barren quarries and arid wastelands as the Lear-like Dock Tobin basks in his own pompous self-worth: a quality which the members of Tobin’s “family” rarely address their concerns in subversive tones out of both fear and a sense of duty to the man. It this sense of in-bred obedient conformity which pushes the clan to the outskirts of Lassoo; only for Jones to discover that the mining hub is simply a ghost town inhabitated by two Mexican peasants. The town like Tobin is a skeleton of a bygone era of frivolous wealth and moral disorder.

Yet, despite his mental incapacity, Tobin still commands- and receives- respect and allegiance from his admirers. He outlines the moral codes and attitudes for the men and acts like a father-figure in nurturing their opinions. While Jones has developed a sensitive demeanour since abandoning Tobin, his followers are imbued with a physically aggressive and violent sense of gender identity. This violence is best noted in an unnerving scene in which Coaley orders Billie to perform a striptease for the men, whilst holding Jones at knifepoint: slitting part of his neck in the process. Yet, when the intoxicated Dock Tobin orders Coaley to cease, the latter duly obliges. Later when Dock orders his men to engage in wrestling matches with one another in a drawn-out sequence, they readily oblige to his command.

Yet, despite his attempts at reform, this conformist view of masculinity intrigues Jones with its demeaning banter, sexual aggression and homoerotic feats of physical strength. When Tobin halts the wagons outside a bucolic terrain and orders Coaley and Link to fight, the pair enter into an intensive and grueling form of fighting: both trying to impress the senior Tobin. Yet, when Cooper realizes the regressive elements of his actions, he soon lets out his earlier fury at Coaley by stripping the latter of his clothing: emasculating him with a forced “striptease.” Jones’ revanchement for Coaley’s earlier sexually demeaning actions towards Billie results in complete and utter embarrassment for Coaley. Not only has his sexual identity been violated by another man, but he has suffered a retribution which his peers equate to a feminine sexual act. Thus, not only has his masculinity been weakened, but also his hetereosexuality has been diluted in public. His tearful attempt at revenge is symbolic not only of his cowardice, but his inability to fulfill the physical duties of a frontier man as prescribed by Dock Tobin.

Despite his difficulties with modernity and its accompanying urban environment, Cooper’s Jones on the otherhand has, at least on the exterior, matured into a fully-developed modern man. By separating himself from Tobin’s astern sense of family, Jones has seemingly grown-up and become an independent adult. This is reflected in his ability both to strike it out on his own terms in Good Hope and deal with the consequences of his past actions. Unlike the childish Coaley, he has accrued a sense of respect and responsibility: treating Billie with respect and feeling guilty over his past sexual actions.

When Billie is threatened with rape by Coaley and Tobin, Cooper attempts to protect her and shield her from the animalistic advances of his former comrades. Billie welcomes Link’s sensitive mannerisms and sense of gentlemanly conduct. Yet, Billie’s sense of gender politics is rather perplexing as her character is easily the least developed in film. Her defining characteristic in the film is found in her frozen responses to sexual violence and threats to her body. Given her comments to Link regarding his sensitivity toward physical intimacy, it is interesting to note that after she is raped, Bille informs Link that she will return to Crosscut to sing and therefore not attempt to foster any (illicit) relations with him: as though the rape has destroyed any chances of her eloping with a respectable man under the auspices of a “civilized” world. Thus like Link Jones, she too now suffers with her past.

The diminutive detail to the characterization of Julie London’s Billie is an anomaly in Anthony Mann’s Man of the West: a film rooted in the complex inner workings of its characters. Like Ford’s The Searchers, Mann’s film presents a protagonist who is struggling to find meaning in both his past and his present. And while Link Jones is not as fiercely unpleasant as Ethan Edwards, he does have a psychological depth of character often lacking in action-oriented pictures of the era. As Ernest Haller’s evocative and serene cinematography isolates the characters from life’s symbolic geography, so to does playwright Reginald Rose’s screenplay with its tragic Shakespearean overtones: pressing characters into nefarious situations, which alter their tone and conduct as the darkest elements of human nature arise from their souls.

Rose and Mann use Link’s search for a schoolteacher and his missing money purse as a "MacGuffin" to inquire into the psychology of human nature and the definition of civilization. The re-acquisition of the money is simply a vehicle to drive forth the film’s analytical details and existential purpose: a point driven home by Cooper’s scant attempts to find the money. Furthmore, Cooper’s character in the mould of the eponymous hero in George Stevens’ Shane: there is a vile brutality in his later "heroic" conduct, which is selfish in its intents, rather than altruistic.

By the final frame of Man of the West, the concept of civilization, like Billie’s clothes is left in tatters. Its heroes are imperfect, their objectives are parsimonious and the aftermath of their actions does not restore the balance or a sense of natural order. As Cooper and London crawl away on their horses from the rocky desert terrain, there is no romantic embrace, or words eneveloped in triumph. Rather the feelings of incompletion and betrayal are re-inforced as neither character believes they can place their faith in civilized institutions, nor the values of justice, fairness and equality they promote.

* Man Of The West is available on R2 DVD through MGM Home Video

Other Anthony Mann Films Reviewed:
He Walked By Night (1948) 8/10


Copyright 2007 8½ Cinematheque