Wichita (1955)

Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Powerful

Excellent but underrated film

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

The award-winning Golden Globe western for Best Outdoor Drama in 1956, "Wichita" reunited "Cat People" director Jacques Tourneur and leading man Joel McCrea for the third and final time. Previously, they teamed up to make the exceptional "Stars in My Crown" (1950) and "Stranger on Horseback" (1955). Although Tourneur won more kudos for his quiet little horror movies with Val Lewton, the Parisian native was no stranger to horse operas. In addition to his Joel McCrea westerns, he helmed "Canyon Passage" with Dana Andrews and "Great Day in the Morning" with Robert Stack. "Wichita" is a standard-issue, town-taming oater with McCrea cast as Wyatt Earp before he acquired his reputation as a lawman. Incidentally, when McCrea made this western, his portrayal of Earp was the tenth time that this famous badge-totter had been depicted. Prolific scenarist Dan Ullman, who also penned the screenplay for another McCrea sagebrusher "The Gunfight at Dodge City," would later reunite with Tourneur on "Great Day in the Morning." Ullman covered all the tropes in this wild and woolly western about cowboys herding cattle into a new railroad town and then blowing off with pent-up aggression as well as their pay on liquor and women. This western marked another collaboration between producer Walter Mirisch who had produced "The Gunfight at Dodge City" as well as "Fort Massacre" with McCrea. Mirisch assembled a first-rate cast that included several seasoned western actors, among them Jack Elam, Robert J. Wilke, Edgar Buchanan, Walter Coy, I. Stanford Jolly, John Smith, and Peter Graves.Wyatt Earp (Joel McCrea of "The Virginian") rides into the wide-open cattle town on the inauguration of its first herd. In no time, he makes a reputation for himself when he foils a bank robbery and arouses the interest of the wealthiest townspeople. They marvel at his ability to handle a six-shooter without killing anybody and promptly offer him a badge that a lesser man is wearing. Politely but firmly, Wyatt turns them down until the drunken cowhands start shooting the town up and accidentally kill an innocent five-year old standing at an open window and watching their shenanigans. Town mayor Andrew Hope (Carl Benton Reid of "Escape from Fort Bravo") swears Earp in as marshal and our hero marches into the dark street armed with his six-gun and a long- barreled shotgun. He arrests the cowboys and herds them off to jail with the help of a local newspaper reporter, Bat Masterson (Keith Larson of "Last of the Badmen"), who later signs on to become his deputy before Earp's brothers Morgan (Peter Graves of "The Five-Man Army" and James (John Smith of TV's "Laramie") ride into town. Despite their repeated efforts to hire Wyatt and his general reluctance to accept the badge, the town wheels are pleased with his performance. Those halcyon days are short-lived after Wyatt issues a town proclamation that guns cannot be worn in town. Railroad entrepreneur Sam McCoy (Walter McCoy of "The Searchers") objects to this ordinance and others like fear like he does that Wyatt has doomed Wichita. When the cattlemen get wind of this law, the town big-wigs worry that they will divert their herds elsewhere and prosperity will be a thing of the past. For a while, Wyatt drives a wedge between them. The mayor refuses to fire him, while the others plot to drive him out."Wichita" is an above-average western with sturdy production values and good performances.

Wichita is directed by Jacques Tourneur and written by Daniel B. Ullman. It stars Joel McCrea, Vera Miles, Wallace Ford, Edgar Buchannan, Lloyd Bridges and Keith Larsen. It's filmed in Cinemascope/Technicolor with cinematography by Harold Lipstein and music by Hans J. Salter.Wichita is an origin story, that of one Wyatt Earp (McCrea), the story is set before he gets to Dodge City, where apparently some famous gunfight occurred. From a narrative stand point it's a town tamer story, Earp arrives in a newly thriving Wichita, at this point he's a hunter of buffalo only. But as the cowboys converge on the town, and things turn very dark, Earp - a bastion of good and just righteousness - finds it impossible to continue in turning down the town superior's offers of becoming the town Marshal.It's one of those Western movies that made Western movie fans become Western movie fans. A film you would have watched as a youngster and just bought totally into the good guy against the baddies central core. Of course as youngsters we wouldn't have cared a jot about thematics such as capitalism ruling over common sense, or metaphysical leanings ticking away, all while a genius director is composing shots and frames of great distinction. Hell! Even the intelligence and maturity in the writing would have escaped us, the dark passages merely incidents of no great concern...Wichita is damn fine film making. OK! It isn't wall to wall action. Sure there is a good round of knuckles, a bit of trench warfare and the standard shoot-outs, but these are just conduits to smart and compelling human drama, richly performed by McCrea (brilliantly cast) and company. Tourneur, Ullman and Lipstein make sure there is no waste on the page or via location framing, the costuming authentic and pleasing, and of course the story itself, the set up of the iconic man himself, is as compelling as it is splendidly entertaining.It be a traditional Western for the traditional Western fan. Nice! 8/10

This movie's a little stiff and simplistic, but entertaining.Here's what I liked:Joel McCrea is a good leading man, fits this role nicely, although he's probably too old to be playing Wyatt Earp here.Good basic "taming of the Wild West story", done much better by John Ford a few years later in "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence". Both movies have a drunken intellectual newspaper editor and Vera Miles is the love interest in both movies. -Usual stock group of great Western character actors from the '50's, including Edgar Buchanan, Lloyd Bridges, Peter Graves, Robert Wilke and Jack Elam. Buchanan at his best playing a man of poor character and low repute. No plot holes and it maintains good interest throughout.Here's what wasn't so great:I'm rarely excited by "town" Westerns. They are usually shot mostly back lot, so there's little scenery. They also have little opportunity to weave in Indian, Civil War or Mexican themes.This whole thing's a little cookie cutter, simplistic and stiff.I know this was very typical in many '50's movies, but I will continue to keep pointing out that the age difference between Joel McCrea and Vera Miles is too wide. Including Stewart and Wayne in "Valence", Miles was fawned over by three leading men who were cumulatively almost 100 years older than her! At least Ethan kept his hands off of her in "The Searchers".Also, her part is gratuitous.No comic relief

It is for me a very good film, one of the best western of cinema's story. Jacques Tourneur proves here that he is a great director and if still many cinema critics are not convinced, I recommend them to read the book about Jacques Tourneur by Chris Fujiwara. I wait for the DVD coupled with for example the beautiful stranger on a horseback.