Bend Of The River (1952)

Besides being a terrific movie in its own right--and the second entry in a remarkable eight-film series teaming director Anthony Mann and star James Stewart--Bend of the River is also fascinating as a variation on one of the greatest Westerns. With or without anyone else's knowledge, screenwriter Borden Chase reworked scenes, character configurations, and much of the structure of Red River, the screenplay of which he had cowritten (from his own novel) for director Howard Hawks six years earlier. Seeing what Hawks and Mann did with some of the same scenes--a spooky night skirmish with Indians, for instance--makes for a compelling lesson in the transformative power of directorial style.

Instead of Texas and the Chisholm Trail, Bend of the River is set in the Oregon river country, with a wagon train substituting for an epic cattle drive. Wagonmaster Stewart, a man with a secret past he's determined to redeem, rescues another, not-so-ex-renegade (Arthur Kennedy) from a lynching. Stewart finds Kennedy a powerful ally in a fight but ultimately has to face him as a mortal enemy--and to revert to his old savage ways in order to save his adopted community. Along the trail, they are variously companioned and/or menaced by the likes of slick gambler Rock Hudson (compare the Cherry Valance part in Red River) and hard cases Harry (then Henry) Morgan, Royal Dano, and Jack Lambert. There's knockout scenery, as usual with Mann, and fight-to-the-death action as bracing as a plunge into an icy river. --Richard T. Jameson Amazon.com

One of the better Westerns of Jimmy...

Another classic Western offering starring Jimmy Stewart.

There is not much to be said about this DVD transfer, just that as MGM/UA, even Universal Studios don't do too much with their classics, except transferring their Films in digital format.

One must also add, that so far, since the copies transferred, where almost pristine looking, save some minor scratches and dust speckles, their DVDs, and those of MGM/UA, still look at least decent if not good on a 16:9 Television.

Yet one wonders why they never bother to restore them digitally to a cleaner copy and perhaps adding some depth to their soundtracks.

But it is a James Stewart Western, and like those of the Duke, they cannot be missed and on DVD they really look at their best.

They are just Classics and as such, they should be part of any serious movie collector's movie vault.

Entertainment guaranteed. June 21, 2008

clairty

Clairty not as good as my old VHS tape for sure..a bit on the dark side.
However, I will make do! BB May 15, 2008

Average James Stewart/Anthony Mann western

This is a decent western but it doesn't pack any surprises.

There is lots of nice location scenery spoilt by all-too-obvious studio work - but I guess this was the 50's.

The best Mann/Stewart western by far is The Man from Laramie. March 20, 2007

Best of enemies

Bend of the River is in many ways Anthony Mann's `nicest' Western, but underneath the gorgeous Technicolor location work there's a darker side to Stewart's border raider desperate to reform and his relationship with friendly enemy Arthur Kennedy that threatens fireworks to come - and when they do, in the last 20 minutes, there's no problem in believing the depth of Stewart's rage or the relentlessness of his pursuit. Shot on many of the same locations as the even darker The Far Country, it's still terrific entertainment. Stepinfetchit's role is a little uncomfortable, but compared to the humiliation inflicted upon him in other pictures he's allowed a bit more dignity here than usual, closer to Hank Worden's Old Mose Harper in The Searchers than the racial stereotypes other directors expected.

As with Universal's DVD of Winchester '73, the print quality isn't always quite as good as it could be, but it's mostly an acceptable transfer. November 11, 2006

A good standard Western with pace and period feeling...

"Bend of the River" welcomes the fine blend of a passionate action with intense characterization that had become Mann's masterful specialty...

Stewart (in his second feature with Mann) is seen as a reluctant hero, stumbled, brutalized and confused, chasing a personal mission with severe determination, and giving life to the complex moral and psychological forces that drive Mann's heroes...

Vivid as a laconic quiet man driven by betrayal to violent rage, Stewart is a former raider on the Missouri-Kansas border, who guides a wagon train of settlers to Oregon... There he gets double-crossed by associates who try to turn aside necessary food and supplies to gold-rush activities...

Ingenious and malicious, Arthur Kennedy (very much in his element), is Stewart's former companion-in-crime whom Stewart saves from hanging, and helps him fight the Indians on the way to Oregon...

Adroit, insincere, and dishonest, Kennedy turns on Stewart stealing the settler's supplies for a handsome profit but is later dispatched by an irritated and enraged Stewart...

Kennedy has been preferred in Westerns as the more insidious kind of villain: friendly, smiling, charming and smooth-talking on the surface, weak and corrupt underneath... His specialty is the courteous type who befriends the hero and then turns out to be planning something illegal to his own advantage on the side...

Julie Adams is along the ride as a love interest getting short penitence in all the macho interplay...

Rock Hudson is cast as a soft gambling man from San Francisco, adept at cards as well as women, defender of a fair deal, ready to fight beside his friends...

Filmed against a breathtaking Technicolor panorama, with nice music that highlights the action, "Bend of the River" is a good standard Western with pace and period feeling, rolling along to its predictable happy ending, discarding any unwanted characters...

November 8, 2006

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