Day of The Outlaw

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Last night TCM ran Day of The Outlaw, a movie I hadn't seen in thirty years. It startled me first because so much of it is noir and second because the script is a knock-out and the acting is just as good.

In brief the story concerns Blaise Starrett (Robert Ryan) coming to a tiny outpost called Bitters in Oregon to confront the man most responsible for putting up barbed wire fencing (the source of many confrontation in the old west) thus inhibiting Starrett's cattle. The first twist is that the farmer who did this is married to Helen, the woman Starrett has loved for years and once had a relationship with. She is played by Tina Louise. Now you probably remember Tina from Gilligan's Island. Forget it. Here she is allowed to be a wild and natural beauty and beauty she is. Really stunning. And believe it or not, a fine actress.

The second twist comes when a disgraced (he oversaw the massacre of Mormons) cavalry officer named Bruhn. Burl Ives plays the role and should have been nominated for an Academy Award for best actor. But this was a low budget black and white western so forget it. He arrives with six thugs. There is a blizzard coming this night and all they want (they say) is shelter for the time being and they will leave in the morning. One of them is played by David Nelson of Ozzie and Harriet fame. Much better actor than his brother Ricky.

In case you don't believe me about the noir aspect, Elisha Cook, Jr. and Dabs Greer are among the players who endure this long night of suppressed rage and ever increasing tension. I promise you the suspense is chilling because you're never quite sure where the story is going. And because Ryan and Ives are so compelling in the psychological games they play. The second act is almost stage bound; the actors could be in a play.

Russell Harlan was the cinematographer. The way he used the violence of winter in the mountains reminded me a great deal of "On Dangerous Ground" another noir with Robert Ryan. Nature becomes brutalizing here, especially in the third act which is shot entirely in the snowy wasteland of the mountain passes.

The script is credited to Philip Yordan. Given his reputation for sticking his name on things that he didn't write (he paid ghosts and sometimes just convinced writers to let him share credit) I'm not sure who actually wrote it. Though early on Yordan was a hell of a good writer so I'll take his word for it here.

This was the last western Andre De Toth directed. He did many of them but this is his triumph. I don't care how many westerns you've seen, you've never seen one like this. It's fitting that the critics of the time hated it. This was all about human beings--it could've been a contemporary crime film--and they didn't know what to make of it.

Believe me this movie will stay with you. You can get a copy cheap cheap on Amazon.