[SHANE
screens Sunday March 20th at 3:30 pm at the Cleveland Cinematheque.]
Review
by Charles Cassady, Jr.
I probably sound like I dislike SHANE.
Not at all, no need for the Sam Kinison clips. I probably just envy
Ewing's money, prominence and power. "Cinematheque," yeah,
right, like there aren't 500 other movies houses with a name like
that. Why not an original name for the place, like, oh, I don't know,
"The Cassadyorium?"
Anyway if you can set your own personal Wayback Machine to 1953 you can appreciate that SHANE is a serious-minded western that does the genre proud - not one of the silly singing-cowboy fantasies that stampeded by the thousands out of old Hollywood. Setting is the Wyoming frontier (that director George Stevens photographed with special lenses that make the Grand Tetons loom Ansel-Adams-like in the background), shortly after the Civil War. A horseman named Shane (Alan Ladd), just passing through the mountains, lingers with a family of homesteaders, the Starretts, who are in the thick of a range feud between settlers and the valley ranch boss Ryker (Emile Meyer). Ryker wants all the land for his booming cattle business, and has a posse of goons regularly bullying the would-be farmers trying to make their homes in the area. There are no sheriffs or courts established yet to sort out which side is in the right.
Anyway if you can set your own personal Wayback Machine to 1953 you can appreciate that SHANE is a serious-minded western that does the genre proud - not one of the silly singing-cowboy fantasies that stampeded by the thousands out of old Hollywood. Setting is the Wyoming frontier (that director George Stevens photographed with special lenses that make the Grand Tetons loom Ansel-Adams-like in the background), shortly after the Civil War. A horseman named Shane (Alan Ladd), just passing through the mountains, lingers with a family of homesteaders, the Starretts, who are in the thick of a range feud between settlers and the valley ranch boss Ryker (Emile Meyer). Ryker wants all the land for his booming cattle business, and has a posse of goons regularly bullying the would-be farmers trying to make their homes in the area. There are no sheriffs or courts established yet to sort out which side is in the right.
Shane speaks little about himself.
Because of his mysterious past he's never fully accepted by the
suspicious settlers. Still, he stays with the Starretts, partially
because of friendship with their little boy Joey (the fine Brandon de
Wilde, who would sort of fall into the realm of
ill-fated-former-child-actors, sorry) who idolizes him. Shane teaches
the child how to draw and shoot.
There's also a developing love triangle
with gun-loathing Mrs. Starrett (Jean Arthur) and a rivalry with the
husband and father Joe Starrett (Van Helfin).
Joe strives to unite the embattled
farmers against Ryker, but his motivation, at least in part, may be
so he can look just as tough and macho as Shane does in front of his
wife and son, and in that sense he possibly blows a chance at a
peaceful resolution.
It's never spelled out in plain terms,
but Shane is obviously a veteran gunfighter - think freelance
hit-man, in modern terms - and to the farmers no better the thugs on
Ryker's payroll, even as Shane (reluctantly) straps on his six-guns
to defend against the villains. You'd think the settlers would be
grateful, but (except for Joey) they aren't. Late in the movie Ryker
tries to negotiate a peace with Starrett, and the range boss has got
a surprisingly strong argument that suddenly makes the farmers seem
slightly less like poor victims and more stubborn and selfish. SHANE
is a morally complex western (not just white hats and black hats)
that plays well for both the action fans and viewers looking for
meaty drama in grand, Golden-Age Hollywood fashion.
(And, if you weren't lucky enough to
get it assigned in school, read the source novel by Cleveland-born
Jack Schaeffer, one very good read and an satisfying experience all
in itself)
John Ewing will personally MC the
evening. Maybe he’ll bring a whole SHANE action-figure
collection, including a rare Mrs. Starrett With Lifelike Adulterous
Crush ™ still in shrink wrap. I once asked Ewing to explain his
SHANE-mania. Why the obsession with this film? There aren't even any
Ewoks or Jedi or pre-existing comic books (though Cliff Robertson did
play villainous cowboy named "Shame" on the old Batman TV
show, there's that).
He first beheld SHANE at
age 15 at a drive-in. "I've seen the movie many times," he
said. "It's my all-time favorite. And over the years - and
during the movie - have identified alternately with Joey, Joe, and
the Christ-like Shane. But now that I'm a dad in my mid-fifties, I
see myself most as the idealistic, hardworking, but clueless Joe
Starrett. Whose idealism and goodness are no match for the forces of
darkness. And whose pathetic attempt to redeem himself as a
self-sacrificing, gun-toting `hero' in the eyes of his Shane-struck
wife and child results in nothing but a serious bump on the noggin."
Should I have put "Spoiler Alert"
before that last sentence for SHANE virgins? Would be standard
practice in the Cassadyorium. Of course my favorite film HEAD
has no linear narrative; therefore, no spoilers possible. (3 ½ out
of four stars)
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