Search This Blog

Friday, December 21, 2018

The Nevadan (1950)

An outlaw (Forrest Tucker) escapes from his guards and heads out to get the hidden $250,000 in gold that he stole in a stagecoach robbery. He meets up with a man (Randolph Scott) that he coerces into accompanying him and they form a tenuous "friendship". Directed by Gordon Douglas (TONY ROME), this minor "B" horse opera is pretty solid. Handsomely shot in Cinecolor by Charles Lawton Jr. (LADY FROM SHANGHAI) which does justice to the effective Lone Pine locations, the film's characters are more delineated  than usual. Each character is given just enough depth that we know them better than we would if they were just stock figures in a western (good guys, bad guys, the girl etc.). The film is a bit more explicitly violent than most western of the era: a character is shot in the face, people bleed when they are shot, animals are killed in cold blood. Even the "romance" is subdued. The relationship between Scott and Dorothy Malone as a rancher's daughter is suggested rather than played out. With George Macready, Frank Faylen and Jeff Corey. 

No comments:

Post a Comment