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Juana what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

Logan By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

mark.waltz Long before her days as the noble but strong willed Miss Ellie on "Dallas" and with a stage career not yet legendary, Barbara Bel Geddes scored brief success in films. She scored an Oscar nomination as the "I" who "Remembered Mama" and got all tough with Robert Mitchum in this film noir western. When first seen, she's shooting at Mitchum, purposely missing but with intent of scaring him away. He shoots back, basically knocking her down, but when next seen, she knocks the hat off his head with a single shot, leaving him hiding the fact that he's petrified. Obviously, there are sparks, but Bel Geddes won't be putting down her rifle anytime soon as she deals with the corruption of fear mongering Robert Preston who uses Mitchum in his scheme to forge locales to sell him their cattle.While plots like this have turned up in westerns ever since the creation of the genre, never had it been done with such a psychological darkness. Film noir had been around for a few years and elements of the darkness at dawn under a western moon were turning up in westerns, most notably in "Pursued", a western thriller that Mitchum had made the year before. Robert Wise, a former film editor who added noir elements into the horror genre, now did the same thing here, and the results are successful, if not completely satisfying. Shadows in the snow this could have been called, with Preston a very subtle villain and Tom Tully and Phyllis Thaxter are very good as the father and sister whom Bel Geddes has toughened up to protect. Walter Brennan is also aboard as a local wise man who provides a moral guide for the developers characters.So how does, exactly, a standard western plot become film noir? The psychological degradation of seemingly decent characters, others having to take steps to bring the evil forces down by reaching into their own psyche, and anti-heroes who keep so much inside. Moody photography, a screenplay that goes deeper into the darkness inside all mankind, and a direction that moves the camera around like it was reading everybody's minds and often became the standing replacement where a character was speaking from. This genre hit its height with "The Furies" two years later, but "Blood on the Sun" successfully reveals the important elements that make film noir tick, western or not, and would be a great guide to filmmakers of the future.

Spikeopath Blood on the Moon is directed by Robert Wise and is adapted from a Luke Short story by Lillie Hayward and Harold Shumante. It stars Robert Mitchum, Barbara Bel Geddes, Robert Preston, Walter Brennan, Phyllis Thaxter, Frank Faylen, Tom Tully and Charles McGraw. Music is by Roy Webb and cinematography by Nicholas Musuraca. Story has Mitchum as drifting cowboy Jim Garry, who after receiving a job offer in the mail from old acquaintance Tate Riling (Preston), finds himself pitched in the middle of a war between cattle ranchers and homesteaders.Effective and tightly crafted Western that has garnered many favourable remarks, due in the main to its ability to veer away from formula suggested by the plot and the technical film noir touches brought about by the great Musuraca. With Mitchum turning in one of his great screen dominating performances, film is driven forward by the psychological aspects brought about by thematics such as duplicity, split loyalties and moral quandaries. Director Wise does a good job of pacing the film, keeping it on the slow burn whilst dialling into Jim Garry's mindset, and picture is further boosted by a great knuckle fight and a rip-roaring siege shoot out at the end. But it's the mood created by Musuraca and Wise that is the real winner. With the film set 90% at night or in darkened rooms, shadow play is high and an oppressive feel adds weight to the psychological clocks ticking away in the narrative. In support of Mitchum, Geddes does spunky cowgirl well, while the presence of Brennan, Faylen and the gravel voiced McGraw is keenly felt.Good story, well acted and visually potent. 7/10

sol1218 ***SPOILERS*** Winging south through the open prairie rain soaked and saddle sored Jim Garry, Robert Mitchum, gets himself in the middle of a bloody conflict between cattlemen and homesteaders. This fighting is all being manipulated by Garry's friend who had hired him as a gunslinger to clean up things in the area the double-crossing Tate Riling, Robert Preston.Riling has gotten the homesteaders all fired up against cattleman John Lufton,Tom Tully, in conning them in him being on their side. Riling is actually planning to with the help of the US Government take away land that Tully uses as grazing for his some 2,500 head of cattle. Working behind the scenes with government contractor Jack Pindalest, Frank Faylen, who provides the beef for the local Indian reservation Riling plans to force Lupton to sell him his cattle at bargain basement prices, and split the profits with him, before the deadline by the US Government runs out and it has the military sizes his cattle for noncompliance!It's takes a while for Garry to realize that he's being used by Riling before throwing his lot in with Lufton in stopping his, together with Pindalest, maniacal plan from being thrown into effect. Meanwhile in covering all the bases the back stabbing and snake in the grass Riling is having an affair with Lufton's older daughter Carol, Phyllis Thaxter, in him trying to get her to turn against her father in promising Carol that what he's doing, stealing her dad's cattle, is really in her's and her father's best interest. Garry himself has since gotten romantically involved with Lufton's younger daughter Amy, Barbara Bel Geddes, after she almost shot him in her mistaking Garry for being one of Riling's gunsling hit-men.***SPOILERS*** Garry with the help of one of Riling's disgruntled former homesteaders supporters Kris Barden, Walter Brennan, who's son Fred, George Cooper, was killed in one of Riling's raids on Lufton's cattle plans to put to an end to both Riling and Pindalest's devious plan in a violent shoo-out in Braden's cabin at the conclusion of the movie. Garry who was previously attacked and badly wounded by one of Pindalest Indian goons by getting knifed in the chest finally gets his big chance to have it out with Riling Pindalest and their men at Barden's barricaded cabin in the woods in sub-freezing temperatures. Garry barley able to stand up from the freezing cold and the knife would he suffered, and also having a touch of pneumonia, ends it all by putting both Riling and Pindalest, together with their plans in taking over Lufton's cattle, out of commission!

Steffi_P Although RKO was a major studio, in the 1940s an unusually large proportion of its output was low-budget B-movies. And not just any B-movies – psychological urban horrors from the Val Lewton unit, and plenty of gritty thrillers of the type that would come to be known as film noir. There was also a brisk trade in Westerns at all the studios, and RKO was no exception, but perhaps no picture better demonstrates that the studio was practically stuck in "noir" mode than the literally dark Western Blood on the Moon.Much of Blood on the Moon's bleak look is down to director of photography Nicholas Musuraca, who did the job on many of the Lewton horrors, including the seminal Cat People. Musuraca was quite capable of doing regular (and still very accomplished) cinematography – take a look at I Remember Mama, for which he received his only Oscar nomination – but his speciality was cloaking the screen in vast swathes of black. You would think this would be difficult in a Western, which ought to be full of vast empty plains and sunny skies. But Musuraca uses lighting techniques that can turn anything into a silhouette, or edges and corners into indistinct patches of darkness. He even makes clouds and buttes into foreboding black blobs. But he does not simply dim everything darker – his craft is very precise, and he is capable of throwing sharp white light where it is needed, or creating layers of grey amidst the gloom. Incidentally, while this adds immensely to the atmosphere, it is also probably part of RKO's general trend of hiding the lack of lavishness on a cheap production. After all, who needs a big town set when all you can make out is a door frame and a hitching post? Musuraca's partner in crime is director Robert Wise, another graduate of the Lewton unit. Wise adds to the atmosphere by composing tightly framed shots with bits of scenery and foreground clutter obscuring chunks of the screen. And look at how much of the movement is in depth rather than across the screen. Often characters are moving straight towards us, virtually staring into the lens, and this adds to the aura of menace. Just like in a well-made film noir (as well as those Val Lewton horrors) the overall impression is of a surreal nightmare world from which there is no escape. That is quite an achievement in a Western.Wise was also an expert at handling the pacing of his pictures, here shooting intense and nasty action sequences, spaced out by moody and measured dialogue scenes. This latter actually gives room for some nice acting performances. Robert Mitchum – a man who made an art form out of laconic moodiness – is perfect for those quieter moments. Like Humphrey Bogart, he was at first mistaken for a supporting player, but film noir gave him a niche as a leading man. Barbara Bel Geddes seems really cut out as Mitchum's tomboyish love interest. Active and assertive parts like the one she has here did not come up often for women in this era, and she gives it her all. Best of the bunch though is Walter Brennan, who looks and sounds like the typical crusty old man, and as such played a part in dozens of Westerns in his time. But under his character actor exterior he could emote beautifully, and in Blood on the Moon you really believe his mourning for his son.What we have here isn't simply a case of Wise and Musurasca giving a mischievous murky makeover to a good ol' cowboy flick. It seems the project was in noir territory right from the outset. Lillie Hayward, who I don't recall seeing credited anywhere else, but seems to have done a top job, has really just given us a gritty PI thriller out West. Mitchum is not so much the iconic drifter and more a grudgingly moral gun for hire. There is little distinction between the cowpunchers and the homesteaders (although in any case these two groups tended to be fairly interchangeable as villains and heroes from one Western to another – a bit like the North and South in Civil War movies). And interestingly this is one of the few pictures of this time to feature bona fide cowgirls, who shoot, talk and ride like the men. Parasols and petticoats are out of the question in this Western.Leaving aside all social context and genre subversion, the most important question is surely, is it actually any good? The answer is yes. Blood on the Moon does what any decently made B-flick ought to do – it is neither deep, moving or intelligent, but it gives a quick and reliable round of entertainment.