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| From http://fiftieswesterns.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/the-halliday-brand-movie-poster-1020533660.jpg |
Dir. Joseph H. Lewis
Regardless of my thoughts, The Halliday Brand looks exceptional. Joseph H. Lewis, in just a few films,
has shown a tremendous visual eye, encapsulated by the dark smoke covered
alleys of The Big Combo (1955) and
the gangsters standing in the middle of it blurred, and with The Halliday Brand, cinematographer Ray Rennahan adds to this with his
talents. The black-and-white images, of closed rooms, cramp and shadow covered,
to wide open plains, sprawling and at points baroque in look, are sumptuous
with a rich use of lighting. At points it fells naturalistic, at others
stylised and artificial, like a summary of the western genre in terms of
images. After his sheriff father (Ward
Bond) may have deliberately allowed a half American Indian employee to be
lynched, because of his racism and hatred of the idea of his daughter being in
love with him, one of the sons (Joseph
Cotton) decides to act in a way to make his proud, egotistical father crawl
on his belly to apologise for his nature. Using the dissolve flashback to enter
its back-story for most of the film, the old, no longer used editing effect
causing a complete fraction of time as an entire chapter in a person's life
goes for just a minute in the present for them, the relationship between the
father and son is problematic even on the father's deathbed.
As a technical piece of visual
art, it's great, but the narrative is minor. It is enough when supported by the
film's visual splendour and the prescience of the actors, especially Cotton and Bond, but by itself it doesn't match up to something like Lewis' own Terror In A Texas Town (1958). It feels lacking in story, which
even in such a short length could have juggled this parental divide alongside
the romance with the lynched man's sister (Viveca
Lindfors), the son's brother and Cotton's
character, but as is the case with such a continually churned out genre, it fells
underwritten, with the ending feeling like a big anticlimax. It's more of a
personal taste as times, but which such a visual eye to it, this isn't the film
that's going to push Joseph H. Lewis
(yet) from being a fascinating director to a great one. I'm going to have to
see more of his films to see if this can happen.
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| From http://cf2.imgobject.com/t/p/original/cBx0lwUKtyAvLyo0QmrsIFDZpnT.jpg |
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