Hangman's Knot (1952)

A tense, well-made oater with Randolph Scott standing firm against Lee Marvin (on his side) and a murderous bunch of drifters

Major Matt Stewart, CSA, (Randolph Scott) and his men have a problem. It's Nevada, 1865, and they've just shot down a group of Union soldiers and taken $50,000 worth of gold. Their orders were do to just this, and to get the gold back to the Confederacy. The problem is that the war ended a few weeks ago and they didn't know it. No one will believe their story if they turn themselves in, not with ten or so Union corpses on the ground. They decide to keep the gold and attempt to make their way back home. This isn't going to be easy. Stewart and his men wind up in an isolated stage relay station, pinned down by a gang of murderous drifters. With Stewart and his men are Molly Hull (Donna Reed) and Lee Kemper (Richard Denning), who'd been passengers on a stage. Molly had been a Union nurse and is a fine looking woman. Kemper says he's her fiancée, but we suspect that he's just a smooth operator, probably with cowardly tendencies. And there's the couple who run the station, an old man and his daughter-in-law, a woman whose husband and son were killed fighting for the Union.

Then there's the matter of Stewart's men. Most are reasonably good guys, including Cass Browne (Frank Faylen), a matter-of-fact realist with a sense of irony, and Jamie Groves (Claude Jarman, Jr.), the obligatory young kid who has to learn to become a man. There's also Rolph Bainter (Lee Marvin) as, what else if Marvin plays him, a mouth-breathing bully with a fondness for killing. "What's happened to you? Is it that easy to kill a man?" Major Stewart asks Bainter just after Bainter guns down a minor player. "Well, isn't it?" says Bainter with a shrug.

Hangman's Knot starts with a rousing action sequence that includes the attack on the gold escort, the tense appearance of the drifters' gang, the stagecoach chase and the first attack on the stage station. It concludes with a violent resolution that involves fire and rain, with lighting and betrayal all mixing it up with a lot of death. Some critics have said that the middle of Hangman's Knot, when everyone except the drifters is holed up in the small, two-room station, is slow going. I don't think so. It's just that the middle doesn't have any galloping. What the middle section has is tense character development. We get to know who the people are and see the dynamics of their relationships change, thanks to a shrewd screenplay. I don't want to make too much of this but in the hands of actors like Jeanette Nolan, Frank Faylen, Glenn Langan and Richard Denning Hangman's Knott turns into a pleasant way to spend 81 minutes. While it may not be an A movie, it certainly isn't a B movie, perhaps a strong B-plus. And it's Randolph Scott who makes the difference. He had long ago established himself as a major star. Like Joel McCrea, he liked the outdoors and had enough money and smarts to make the movies he wanted to make, namely Westerns. Most of the movies he made in the Fifties he also produced. Scott was a big guy who aged well and stayed lean. There never was any doubt which side of honor Scott's characters came down on.

Watching Randolph Scott handle Lee Marvin is an interesting lesson in star charisma. In this movie, Marvin is modestly billed but has an important role. Five years later in Seven Men From Now (Special Collector's Edition), Marvin is billed third and the movie essentially is about the two of them. Marvin is still the sneering bully who likes to prod the weak. In both movies, Marvin is such a strong presence with his own brand of charisma and vivid unlikablity that not too many star actors could have stood up to him. Scott was 26 years older than Marvin and looks it. Yet it is Scott, in my opinion, who dominates. Marvin steals no scenes he shares with Scott. That, in my view, speaks to Scott's genuine star power. In the movies, assuming the actors are both capable, lip-smacking evil will almost always dominate earnest good. Just look at how Walter Huston stole the show from Edward Arnold in The Devil & Daniel Webster - Criterion Collection. It takes a rare actor who plays good to dominate another capable actor playing bad. Not many actors had Lee Marvin playing second fiddle. Scott did it twice.

The color movie has a good DVD transfer that does justice to all those wide-open spaces in the first third of the movie. There are no extras. September 25, 2008

A fine Randolph Scott film!

"Hangman's Knot" moves briskly along from beginning to end. There's no dead space in this Scott-Brown Production for Columbia Pictures. There's a good linear plot with fine character development, good acting and enough action to appeal to a wide spectrum of viewers. Scott always delivers his best and makes his character believable within the context of the film.

I've only seen the VHS of this film but it's enough to make me want to order a DVD. This one's a keeper.

Now if only we could get DVDs (let alone BluRays) of all the classic Scott-Brown ("Ranown") films, particularly, "Ride Lonesome". April 11, 2008

knuckleheads-the war is over!

This film must have had a touch of de ja vu for Randolph Scott. As in his 1940 "Virginia City", he is in charge of a stolen Yankee gold shipment in Nevada, meant to help the Confederacy prolong the War. In both cases, this operation occurred just before or just after the War was over. Thus, the question is:What should be done with the gold? They couldn't just give it back to Federal authorities, as they had killed 7 soldiers in stealing it, even if they believed they were acting on behalf of their government. Most of the film involves fending off bandits who know for sure what to do with the gold. In the end, it's not clear(to me) the eventual fate of the gold. Perhaps a fate basically similar to that of the gold in "Virginia City"? More likely, the remaining hostages(now their declared friends!), returned it to Federal authorities, explaining that the theives had all been killed in a shootout with another bandit gang or by themselves(not true)... A good action western. The plot is not complicated, but the basic situation is, especially for the ex-Confederates and their hostages. August 8, 2007

Hangman's Knot 1952

Hangman's knot is an exciting , suspense-filled Western starring Randolph Scott (1898-1987) and an excellent supporting cast , including Donna Reed (1921-1986) and Lee Marvin (1924-1987) . At the and of the Civil War , a small band of Confederate soldiers ambush a Union gold shipment . To their horror , they learn from Dying soldiers that the war between the north and south has been over for a month . Now facing certain criminal prosecutions for acts commited while they through the war was over , the troop seeks refuge in a stagecoach waystations. A feisty ex-union army nurse (Reed) and three others are held captive while the men plot their next move . The troop's leader (Scott) wants to return the gold in exchange for amnesty , but the bloodthirsty bounty hunters are closing in , and have every intention of taking the loot and hanging the soldiers . High Quality Transfer . July 2, 2007

"Hangman's Knot (1952) ... Randolph Scott ... Columbia Pictures Classic Western"

Columbia Pictures presents "HANGMAN'S KNOT" (1952) (81 mins/Color) (Dolby digitally remastered) --- Starring Randolph Scott, Donna Reed, Frank Faylen, Richard Denning & Lee Marvin --- Directed by Roy Huggins and released in November 15, 1952, our story line and film, It's 1865 in Nevada and a unit of Confederate soldiers attack a Union troop carrying gold. They kill the soldiers and capture the gold only to learn the war ended a month ago. Deciding to keep the gold they flee but get chased by a group of drifters that want the gold. They get pinned down at a stage relay station and when deals between the two sides fail, the drifters decide to burn them out --- Highly regarded western which ranks alongside the Scott-Boetticher vehicles of a few years later --- Harry Joe Brown and Randy Scott produced some of the best westerns Hollywood ever made, this is one of them ... one of only two films directed by the brilliant writer-producer Roy Huggins.

Under Roy Huggins (Director / Screenwriter), Harry Joe Brown (Producer), Charles Lawton (Cinematographer), Mischa Bakaleinikoff (Musical Direction/Supervision), Gene Havlick (Editor), Frank A. Tuttle (Set Designer) - - - - the cast includes Randolph Scott (Matt Stewart), Donna Reed (Molly Hull), Claude Jarman, Jr. (Jamie Groves), Frank Faylen (Cass Browne), Glenn Langan (Capt. Peterson), Richard Denning (Lee Kemper), Lee Marvin (Rolph Bainter), Clem Bevans (Plunkett), Jeanette Nolan (Mrs. Harris),Ray Teal (Quincey),Monte Blue (Maxwell), John Call (Egan Walsh), Reed Howes (Hank Fletcher), Guinn "Big Boy" Williams (Smitty), Frank Yaconelli, Grant Withers, Edward Earle, Post Park, Frank S. Hagney - - - - Randy Scott had a quiet gentleman nature about him which is not seen in the films of today ... Randy took his job and his responsibility to his audience very seriously ,,, would not settle for anything less than his best ... same was true in his personal life.

SPECIAL FEATURES BIOS:
1. Randolph Scott (aka: George Randolph Scott)
Date of birth: 23 January 1898 - Orange County, Virginia
Date of death: 2 March 1987 - Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, California

Special footnote, George Randolph Scott better known as Randolph Scott, was an American film actor whose career spanned the sound era from the late 1920s to the early 1960s ... his popularity grew in the 1940s and 1950s, appearing in such films as "Gung Ho"! (1943) and "Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm" (1938); but he was especially famous for his numerous Westerns including "Virginia City" (1940) with Errol Flynn and Humphrey Bogart, "Western Union" (1941) with Robert Young and "Ride the High Country" (1962) with Joel McCrea (a coin was flipped to see whether Scott or McCrea would receive top billing, and Scott won despite having a slightly smaller role) ... his long fistfight with John Wayne in "The Spoilers" (1942) was frequently cited by critics and the press as the most thrilling ever filmed; they were fighting over Marlene Dietrich ... another smash hit film together that same year called "Pittsburgh" (1942) once again with Dietrich, Scott and Wayne --- Daniel Webster defines "Legend", as being a notable person, or the stories told about that person exploits --- well by the time Randolph Scott made his best films he had long established himself as a legend in the film industry --- they say practice makes perfect, if that is true by 1958 at 60 years of age he was the master with these oaters from the 50s ... "The Cariboo Trail" (1950), "The Nevadan" (1950), "Colt .45" (1950), "Santa Fe" (1951), "Sugarfoot" (1951), "Fort Worth" (1951), "Man in the Saddle" (1951), "Carson City" (1952), "The Man Behind the Gun" (1952), "Hangman's Knot" (1952), "Thunder over the Plains" (1953), "The Stranger Wore a Gun" (1953), "Ten Wanted Men" (1954), "Riding Shotgun" (1954), "The Bounty Hunter" (1954), "Rage at Dawn" (1955), "Tall Man Riding" (1955), "A Lawless Street" (1955), "Seven Men from Now" (1956), "Seventh Cavalry" (1956), "Decision at Sundown: (1957), "Shoot-Out at Medicine Bend" (1957), "The Tall T" (1957), "Buchanan Rides Alone" (1958), "Ride Lonesome" (1959), "Westbound" (1959), "Comanche Station" (1960) --- Scott's age seemed to matter little, they only came to see another Randolph Scott film and always got their money's worth --- Scott's films were good and getting better becoming classics --- so if you ever wonder "What Ever Happened To Randolph Scott", just rent or purchase one of his films and you'll see he's never left us.

2. Donna Reed (aka: Donna Belle Mullenger)
Date of Birth: 27 January 1921 - Denison, Iowa
Date of Death: 14 January 1986 - Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, California

3. Claude Jarman Jr.
Date of Birth: 27 September 1934 - Nashville, Tennessee
Date of death: Still Living

4. Frank Faylen
Date of Birth: 8 December 1905 - St. Louis, Missouri
Date of Death: 2 August 1985 - Burbank, California

5. Lee Marvin
Date of Birth: 19 February 1924 - New York, New York
Date of Death: 29 August 1987 - Tucson, Arizona

6. Jeanette Nolan
Date of Birth: 30 December 1911 - Los Angeles, California
Date of Death: 5 June 1998 - Los Angeles, California

7. Roy Huggins (Director/Writer)
Date of Birth: 18 July 1914 - Litelle, Washington
Date of Death: 3 April 2002 - Santa Monica, California

Hats off and thanks to Les Adams (collector/guideslines for character identification), Chuck Anderson (Webmaster: The Old Corral/B-Westerns.Com), Boyd Magers (Western Clippings), Bobby J. Copeland (author of "Trail Talk"), Rhonda Lemons (Empire Publishing Inc), Bob Nareau (author of "The Real Bob Steele") and Trevor Scott (Down Under Com) as they have rekindled my interest once again for Film Noir, B-Westerns and Serials --- looking forward to more high quality releases from the vintage serial era of the '20s, '30s & '40s and B-Westerns ... order your copy now from Amazon where there are plenty of copies available on VHS, stay tuned once again for top notch action mixed with deadly adventure --- if you enjoyed this title, why not check out VCI Entertainment where they are experts in releasing B-Westerns and Serials --- all my heroes have been cowboys!

Total Time: 81 min on DVD ~ Sony Home Video ~ (6/15/2004) April 5, 2007

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