Warlock (1959)

Crappy film

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

The town of Warlock is being terrorized by a gang of violent cowboys. So the townsfolk hire notorious gunfighter Henry Fonda and his club-footed sidekick Anthony Quinn to protect them. Later, a man (Richard Widmark) who has left the cowboys because he disapproved of their actions is appointed the deputy sheriff of Warlock. This sets up conflicts involving the cowboys, the hired guns, and the law.Strong cast in thinly-veiled version of Wyatt Earp/Doc Holliday story. The stars are all great. Fonda appears to have had an accident with ink and got a lot of it in his hair. There's solid support from the likes of Wallace Ford, Tom Drake, DeForest Kelly, and Frank Gorshin. Dorothy Malone and Dolores Michaels have the only two prominent female roles and both are fine. It's an intelligent, layered western with good performances and a quality script. The basic plot is nothing new, even for 1959, but it's handled in such a way it feels fresh. Subtext fans will have a field day with Quinn's character.

There is no doubt that this Film was brilliantly put together both in Direction and Star Quality. When you put together Henry Fonda, Richard Widmark and Anthony Quinn, you know you are in for a treat. The story is quite superb and a far cry from many of the Westerns being churned out in the Fifties. As the Marshal who is quite dangerous, in his own way, Fonda is really the star around which so much resolves. Widmark as a reformed outlaw turned Deputy Sheriff plays his role to perfection, while Anthony Quinn as the crippled close friend of the Marshal is integral to the final outcome. They are greatly supported by a well-worn Dorothy Malone, and to me at least a surprising good performance by Tom Drake as the cruel and somewhat cowardly leader of the Outlaws. It is one of the last Cinemascope big movies by Fox, and the photography and atmosphere are quite spectacular.

Great cast, good story, famous director....boy, this is gonna be one fine movie. You'd think. And you'd be....well, disappointed. What exactly went wrong here? For one thing, both direction and camera-work are average at best. Every scene is shot head on, without any crosscutting or editing to focus the action and increase tension. Any studio hack could have made this. The actors also have no highs or lows in their portrayal of their characters. Widmark is especially low-key, and for half the movie he's just there, and doesn't really pick up the pace for the other half. Fonda and Quinn don't create much fireworks either. Malone is the only one in continual overdrive, but to no avail. These guys will not be riled. This movie just simmers along and ultimately fizzles out. Thank the saints for the Italians for reviving the comatose genre in the Sixties.

Warlock (1959)Director Edward Dmytryk is one of those dependable Golden Age mainstays who is pulling off tightly made movies even this late in the game. After many archetypal movies, often just short of greatness, he is still putting on a good game with first rate camera-work (Joe MacDonald) and top shelf actors (Henry Fonda, Anthony Quinn, and Richard Widmark, all in major roles). And so this is actually a strong, complex movie.It helps that the plot, even though apparently another retread of Western clichés, is complex and well balanced. That the bad guys are partly very good and vice versa is exactly what the genre needs, and it is filmed so gorgeously--the night and interior stuff especially--it has a feeling of total command. It's a strong if still conventional film, a true Western in the best Anthony Mann sense rather than John Ford. The plot is too complex to even analyze quickly, but a couple key elements play out. First, Fonda and Quinn play hired marshals who come into towns overwhelmed by some bad guys. They are hired for their ruthlessness because the town has no choice, but when they get to work, the town begins to doubt itself. And then there are all the secret past events that seem to converge here, almost too perfectly, but creating a layered and sometimes confusing backstory that gradually moves front and center.All three male actors are in top form--I'll assume it's because the whole lot of them were consummate professionals there to get a job done well. While this was made years after the official end of the old studio system, it still is made (on location) with the same general factory ethic--tight production standards, familiar genres, efficient entertainment. It works, and it works better than it should. Certainly not a classic like "High Noon" or "Stagecoach," but a solid entry even for people who think they don't like westerns.