An interesting example of how film noir could sensibly sashay itself into an already established genre, could be seen in the psychological Western. Distinctive from the tropes and themes of the standard American Western, it wasn't shy on irony that conceptually speaking, the archetypal Western had about as much in common with traditional noir than Idi Amin did with Nelson Mandela. Most of the locations of the Western traditional were wide open spaces as opposed to modern cities, and they have an affinity for focusing on moral certainties. However, following the second World War, the genre cultivated a higher degree of moral complexity. In the psychological Western the iconic figure of both the cowboy and the lawman would often resemble the true noir protagonist - alienated and threatened, on a less than heroic quest and following a personal moral code in lieu of the law. Very often, he is obsessed and masochistic. driven by revenge and capable of uncontrollable rage.
A great number of directors who prided themselves on their contributions to noir, also turned out some eye-opening Westerns. Chiefly, was director Anthony Mann a noir alum, who in a sum of ten Westerns introduced his audience to a much harsher level of violence and characters who carry about excessive psychological baggage. The affable James Stewart would be Mann's top banana, his favorite lead, who respectively in 1950's Winchester '73 and the subsequent The Naked Spur (1952) tapped into a hidden anger and an intensity far removed from his earlier pedestrian performances. Even darker than the aforementioned entries was 1958's Man of the West, it is here that genre mainstay Gary Cooper plays a criminal reformed with some harsh decision to make.
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| Ollie,Ollie Ox Bow Incident |
The first significant example of a noir-inflected Western came a decade earlier with The Ox-Bow Incident (1943); a bleak tale of the lynching of three innocent men. Raoul Walsh packed a similar wallop with Pursued (1947); Robert Mitchum portrays a man incarcerated by his demons of past. Mitchum resurfaced in Blood on the Moon the following year, this time as a cowboy who drifts into a dispute between homesteaders and ranchers, ultimately siding with the homesteaders when he realizes his boss is an insidious double-dealer. In The Gunfighter, Gregory Peck's eager to retire gunslinger has to confront the precarious reality of his reputation in a taut and suspense laden tale about a tragic and lonely man.
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| 1952's High Noon, came high time to ruffle an HUAC feather or three. (Gary Cooper and six shooter) |
The early 1950's even saw the Western take on the issues raised by McCarthyism and the HUAC, most famously and demonstratively in the controversial High Noon (1952), in which Gary Cooper plays a marshal who risks life and limb for what he believes in. Penned by the soon to be blacklisted Carl Foreman, the film was paradoxically praised by Conservatives for showing a world where the masses are motivated by duty. Alan Dwan's Silver Lode (1954) took an overtly anti-McCarthy stance with Dan Duryea playing the villain as per - and with the befitting moniker McCarty, he successfully and single-handedly turns the townsfolk against reputable rancher Dan Ballard (John Payne) in order to quell a grudge.