Build-Your-Own-Blogathon: Bad Apples in BEND OF THE RIVER (1952)

This post is part of the Build-Your-Own-Blogathon hosted by the Classic Film and TV Cafe. It follows Caftan Woman's discussion of T-Men (1947), which shares its director, Anthony Mann, with Bend of the River (1952). Visit the Classic Film and TV Cafe for a complete list of the blogs participating in this blogathon!



"That kind can't change. When an apple's rotten, there's nothing you can do except throw it away or it will spoil the whole barrel." - Jeremy Baile

Director Anthony Mann collaborated with Jimmy Stewart on a number of excellent Westerns, including the 1952 film, Bend of the River, which takes the rugged country of the Pacific Northwest as its frontier territory. It's a story about gold fever, moral decay, and second chances, with Stewart as a former outlaw trying to turn over a new leaf as an honest man. Stewart's Glyn McLyntock is, of course, a good apple, no matter how shady his past, but the movie also presents us with a parade of foils and variations on the same theme. Jay C. Flippen and Chubby Johnson play for the angels as the movie's older good men, with Flippen especially crucial to Stewart's character as the leader of the Oregon settlers, but the less exemplary characters prove far more numerous. Arthur Kennedy and Rock Hudson play men whose moral compasses need more recalibration than Stewart's, while Howard Petrie depicts the rapid transformation of a good man gone wrong over gold, and Harry Morgan plays one of the dirtiest little apples ever seen in a Western barrel. These slippery, complicated performances help make Bend of the River a smart study of psychology as well as an exciting frontier adventure, and the bad apples inform our understanding of the hero's own inner struggle.

"$100,000 is a lot of money." - Emerson Cole (Arthur Kennedy)

Glyn's primary counterpart throughout the picture is Kennedy's Emerson Cole, a man who has so much in common with Glyn that Glyn tends to think of their destinies as inextricably linked. Cole shares Glyn's past as a raider, and he has enough integrity to appreciate it when Glyn saves his life, but Cole lacks the essential strength of character that sets Glyn apart. Cole likes fast living and violence; he's quick to draw his gun, even when lesser measures would suffice. Kennedy plays Cole as an enigma at first, encouraging us to like him even when we don't trust him, but the lure of wealth proves too much for him to resist. Even the love of Laura (Julie Adams) means nothing to him once a fortune comes within reach. Glyn offers him multiple chances at true redemption, but Cole succumbs to greed.

"You're real fast with that gun, kid, but you're soft." - Emerson Cole (Arthur Kennedy)

Hudson's handsome young gambler, Trey Wilson, makes the relationship between Glyn and Cole into a triangle. His essential nature is ambiguous early on; as a gambler, he is clearly a man who values money, but he doesn't like to kill. Cole even scolds him for being too soft-hearted. Trey throws in with Glyn and Cole without much thought, and he doesn't have to choose between them until it becomes clear that the two older men are moving in starkly different directions. Even then, Trey keeps his cards hidden, so that we're never quite sure which side he's on until the very end of the film. Trey actually fills two Western character types at once. Despite his worldly demeanor and flashy clothes, he is also this film's version of the Kid who has to decide which model of masculinity he wants to embrace; he can chase wealth and become like Cole, or he can do the right thing and emulate Glyn.

"I could get fifty times what you paid for that food. It's gold, do you understand, gold!" - Tom Hendricks (Howard Petrie)

Howard Petrie plays Tom Hendricks, the Portland official who first welcomes the settlers with open arms but later betrays their trust by reselling their winter supplies at wildly inflated prices. If Hendricks seems a little too friendly at first, that merely sets the stage for his later corruption, when we see him at his overflowing money table with a mad gleam in his eyes. Hendricks' fall mirrors that of the entire community; when Glyn and Jeremy (Jay C. Flippen) return to Portland looking for their supplies, they find the formerly pleasant town transformed into a filthy den of violence, greed, and lust. Hendricks is so far gone that he doesn't care if his double dealing costs the settlers their lives; he is even willing to kill Glyn and Jeremy to protect his financial interest. Tellingly, Cole doesn't seem to process the warning of Hendricks' fate; he's too busy shooting Hendricks' men while they try to run away.

"We're going to the gold camp with this food." - Shorty (Harry Morgan)

While most of the other flawed men in the film have some good qualities, Harry Morgan's Shorty is about as rotten as they come. Along with Red (Jack Lambert) and Long Tom (Royal Dano), Shorty never makes any move unless he's going to get paid for it. Shorty is a far cry from the uncertain but good-hearted character Morgan played in The Ox-Bow Incident (1943). He's a dirty, narrow-eyed sneak, always watching for the opportunity to take advantage of the others. He and the other workers conspire to hijack the food supply and sell it at the highest possible price in the gold mining camp; like Hendricks, they don't care if the settlers starve to death as a result. Unlike Hendricks, Shorty and his pals were never good in the first place. Their worst scene comes when they intentionally drop a wagon on Jeremy, Glyn, and Cole in an effort to murder all three at once.

"Any man can make a mistake." - Laura (Julie Adams)

These men run the gamut in terms of moral character, and each one shapes his own fate through his choices. The corruption of the weaker men reminds us how much is at stake in Glyn's struggle for redemption. Glyn knows that the kind of life he once led can only end badly, but his determination to do right and take a harder path makes him a hero in this story more than any skill with a rifle or knife. While there are plenty of bad apples in Bend of the River, they only make the good ones look that much better.

Classic Films in Focus: TORCH SONG (1953)

Television viewers of a certain age might remember Torch Song (1953) primarily as the butt of a spot-on parody on The Carol Burnett Show, in which Burnett offers a hilarious spin on Joan Crawford's performance in the classic melodrama. It's true that Torch Song, directed by Charles Walters, operates at a pitch that invites such skewering; women's pictures typically favor emotional excess, and Crawford has a particular talent for it, which is why she became such a huge star in that genre in the first place. If, however, you have a taste for weepies, there's a lot to enjoy in this film, not only in the troubled romance between the two leads but also in a number of solid supporting performances, including appearances by Harry Morgan, Gig Young, and Marjorie Rambeau.

Crawford stars as Broadway success Jenny Stewart, whose wealth and fame fail to protect her from years of bitter loneliness. Relentlessly demanding of everyone around her, Jenny finds herself in conflict with her new accompanist, a blind war veteran named Tye Graham (Michael Wilding). As she learns more about him, Jenny's feelings evolve, but his repressed anguish about his blindness keeps him from telling her how long he has loved her from afar.

As the plot summary suggests, there are untold stories that lurk behind the main plot of the film, and these stir the viewer's imagination and build sympathy with the central characters. We don't know how Tye Graham was blinded in the war, and we don't know what he has been doing all these years, although it was obviously enough to afford a very nice apartment. We only get a feeling about the toll that those same years have taken on Jenny; our idea of her as a young newcomer, fresh and lovely, flits around the edges of the story like a beautiful ghost of Broadway past. That idea lives primarily in the memory of Tye, who cannot see the older Jenny but can hear the strain in her voice and the deep-rooted unhappiness that inspires her harsh words. We also only get glimpses of Jenny's rocky relationship with her boyfriend, Cliff (Gig Young), but it's enough to convince us that neither of them is doing the other any real good.

Crawford's intensity fits perfectly with her character, who is so driven that she worries over every aspect of her play, from the costumes and the dance steps to the songs and the lights. The actress does not do her own singing in most of the picture, but her dancing, though somewhat limited, is more graceful and attractive than that seen in earlier work like Dancing Lady (1933). Her hair color at first seems an unfortunate choice, but, as it turns out, the color of her hair is an important plot point, and the less flattering shade functions as a provocative commentary on the way in which the aging Jenny resists the march of the years. Michael Wilding's mildness and blind stare as Tye contrast with Jenny's fierce temper and flashing eyes, and the two stars work well together, particularly in the climactic scene when their characters' roles are finally reversed.

Of the supporting players, Marjorie Rambeau merits special attention; she earned an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress for her performance as Jenny's blue-collar mother, who really loves her famous daughter even though she's not above pumping her for cash. Gig Young makes a likable if useless leech as Jenny's drunken playboy beau, and Harry Morgan reveals stores of long-suffering patience as the theater director who has to put up with Jenny's constant demands. Maidie Norman also puts in a fine performance as Jenny's household manager, who is not so much a maid as a personal assistant, and, apparently, one of the few people with whom Jenny actually behaves herself.

Charles Walters also directed Easter Parade (1948), High Society (1956), and The Unsinkable Molly Brown (1964). For more of Joan Crawford's later roles, try The Damned Don't Cry (1950), Sudden Fear (1952), and Johnny Guitar (1954). By the end of the 1950s she was mostly doing television and hagsploitation horror like Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962). See Michael Wilding in In Which We Serve (1942), Under Capricorn (1949), and Stage Fright (1950). Marjorie Rambeau also earned a Best Supporting Actress nomination for Primrose Path (1940), but she turns up in films going all the way back to 1917. You'll find Gig Young in Old Acquaintance (1943), The Three Musketeers (1948), and Desk Set (1957). Harry Morgan, best remembered for his role on M*A*S*H, has particularly memorable roles in The Ox-Bow Incident (1943), High Noon (1952), and Inherit the Wind (1960), but he worked as a supporting player in many other films, especially Westerns.

Classic Films in Focus: DRAGONWYCK (1946)

Although it’s not as well known today as Gothic thrillers like Rebecca (1940) and Gaslight (1944), Dragonwyck (1946) sprang from the tremendous vogue for romantic thrillers that those movies helped to establish during the 1940s. The picture was adapted from a 1944 novel by Anya Seton, and the late date of the source material helps us understand the story’s obvious affinities with du Maurier and her own muse, Charlotte Brontë. One of the first films directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, Dragonwyck boasts all the flourishes of the classic female Gothic, but its chief attractions are the exquisite Gene Tierney as the imperiled heroine and Vincent Price as her broodingly Byronic spouse.

Tierney stars as Miranda Wells, who thinks her dreams have come true when a distant relative summons her to serve as a companion to his young daughter (Connie Marshall). It soon becomes apparent, though, that the imperious Nicholas Van Ryn (Vincent Price) has other designs on his beautiful cousin, especially after his wife (Vivienne Osborne) mysteriously dies. Despite the romantic overtures of a handsome local doctor (Glenn Langan), Miranda falls under Nicholas’ dangerous spell, and soon her own life is threatened as Nicholas becomes increasingly deranged.

Both Fox players, Tierney and Price had already appeared together in films like Hudson’s Bay (1941), Laura (1944), and Leave Her to Heaven (1945), but Price has a much larger role in Dragonwyck and therefore gets more opportunity to exercise his tremendous screen presence. His Van Ryn is more restrained than the horror characters he would eventually play, but already the outlines of the later Corman characters are clear. Price was handsome enough for a leading man, as Dragonwyck proves, but his particular talent for a cruel twist of the mouth made him far more entertaining as an antagonist. He has an undeniable sexual appeal that makes Miranda’s attraction to him credible, even though the lines of his face and the sarcastic light in his eyes inform the audience of his character’s true nature. Tierney has a complex heroine to play, for Miranda has to remain sympathetic in spite of the flaws that lead her to her fate. Her beauty encourages us to forgive her, and Tierney is at her most lovely in her gorgeous period gowns. The two stars find capable support in the secondary cast, with Glen Langan as the opposite of Price in nearly every way, Walter Huston fiercely righteous as Miranda’s God-fearing father, and Anne Revere kindly as Miranda's loving mother. Spring Byington provides a delightfully creepy performance as the housekeeper, Magda, who ominously warns Miranda of the mansion’s dark past.

Like most of the Gothic thrillers of the era, Dragonwyck has its roots in Jane Eyre, which had gotten its own big Hollywood treatment in the 1943 picture starring Orson Welles and Joan Fontaine. Miranda differs from Jane because she has the benefit of concerned, practical parents who worry over her dreamy notions, but still we have the unhappy first wife, the brooding anti-hero, and the lonely child populating the shadowy, history-haunted halls of the ancestral estate. Dragonwyck breaks away from the narrative arc of the earlier work in its second half, but its deviations still draw upon the conventions of the traditional Gothic, particularly in its use of the vengeful, wandering ghost and its evocation of the old story of Bluebeard and his wives. Those who are interested in the Gothic tradition will find its parallels and variations fascinating, although the film occasionally errs, especially when it drops characters like Magda and the little girl, Katrine, without explanation about halfway through the story.

Look for beloved character actors Harry Morgan as tenant farmer Klaas Bleecker and Jessica Tandy as Miranda’s Irish maid, Peggy O’Malley. For more from Joseph L. Mankiewicz, try The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947), All About Eve (1950), and People Will Talk (1951). See Vincent Price in iconic horror roles in House of Wax (1953), House on Haunted Hill (1959), and Corman films like The Raven (1963) and The Tomb of Ligeia (1964). In addition to her previously mentioned roles, catch Gene Tierney in the wonderful Ernst Lubitsch classic, Heaven Can Wait (1943).

An earlier version of this review originally appeared on Examiner.com. The author retains all rights to this content.