Wordiezett So much average

Dorathen Better Late Then Never

TaryBiggBall It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

Matylda Swan It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties.

Spikeopath Rawhide is directed by Henry Hathaway and written by Dudley Nichols. It stars Tyrone Power, Susan Hayward, Hugh Marlowe, Jack Elam, George Tobias, Dean Jagger and Edgar Buchanan. Music is by Sol Kaplan and Lionel Newman and cinematography by Milton Krasner. A stagecoach station employee and a stranded woman traveller and her baby niece find themselves held hostage by four escaped convicts intending to rob the next day's gold shipment. A Western remake of 1935 crime film Show Them No Mercy, Rawhide is the embodiment of a solid Western production. Beautifully photographed in black and white by Krasner, smoothly performed by a strong cast of actors and seamlessly directed by the astute Hathaway, it builds the hostage plot slowly, tightening the screws of character development a bit at a time, and it unfolds in a blaze of glory come film's end. Characterisations are always interesting, if a bit conventional to anyone who has watched a lot of Oaters. Power is of course our hero in waiting and Hayward is spunky and feisty, I wonder if they will get together romantically? The four convicts are your typical scuzzy types, with Marlowe dominating the screen as the intelligent leader saddled with cohorts he really doesn't care for, while Elam is wonderfully vile as a lecherous loose cannon. The thematics of greed, sexual hostility and jeopardy for Hayward and child keep the pot boiling nicely, so suspense is a constant, and some thought has gone into the writing as regards the convict group dynamic. Sadly Kaplan's musical score is quite often cheese laden, even ridiculously jolly and not at one with the noirish thriller conventions of the story. But regardless of irritating musical interludes, this is a very good Oater and comfortably recommended to Western fans who want more than your standard shoot em' up B pictures. 7.5/10

Robert J. Maxwell If this weren't a Western it would be a film noir. Four escaped gangsters of diverse character take over an isolated stage stop and hold Tyrone Power and Susan Hayward hostage while they wait to hold up the next gold-bearing stagecoach. The gangsters include Hugh Marlowe, Zimmerman, a man of good breeding who went bad; Jack Elam, a slob whose mind is less on gold than on Susan Hayward's blouse; Dean Jagger as a scruffy but good-natured horse thief; and poor George Tobias, reduced from prominent supporting parts during the war years to a humble goon of uncertain nationality ("Gratz") whose lines are limited almost exclusively to, "Ya, Zim." It's a hostage movie along the lines of "Dog Day Afternoon", "The Negotiator", or "Split Second." Instead of a stagecoach stop it could be a bank or a post office waiting for the million-dollar payroll shipment to arrive. Much of it is shot at night. Shadows play across the walls. The air reeks of hazard.But there are two magnetic characters among the dust and sagebrush: Jack Elam and the little girl.Elam is unforgettable, no matter what tripe he's in. You'll probably recognize him if you've seen many movies from the 50s. He's skinny, ugly, and looks as if his first bath was his last. His jaw, the angle of his ascending ramus, is so full of right angles that it seems his face was designed by an engineer with a T-square, probably drunk at the time. There are little gaps between each tooth, suggesting a simian ancestry. His grin is both horrible and horrifying.The other character is a little girl, a toddler, with a cute face. But children are always a nuisance and this one is no exception. She's nothing but trouble, waddling about on stumpy, widespread legs where she shouldn't be, scaring the mules, crying at the wrong time so as to alert the miscreants, exposing herself to gun fire when she should be ducking for cover. There is only one way to keep toddlers in check, and that's to beat them senseless when they cry. It certainly worked with my son. He hasn't spoken to me in twenty years. Not even a post card. And I understand he's doing quite well with his mime act.But enough about this noir Western. It's tense, as almost all hostage movies are. The directors and performers turn in seasoned performances, except for that nettlesome little kid. I sort of get a kick out of it when it's on.

dougdoepke Considering the two big stars, Power and Hayward, along with big-budget TCF producing, I was expecting a large-scale western. But it's not. Instead, the action is limited to a stagecoach way station out in the middle of nowhere. But what the movie lacks in scale, it makes up for with close-in dramatic tension. Tom (Power) better figure out a way to foil the gang of cutthroats before the gold-bearing stage comes through or he and Vinnie (Hayward) and probably her little girl are toast.Gang leader Zimmerman (Marlowe) seems like a reasonable enough bad guy who just wants the gold and then skedaddle. The trouble is he's got wild man Tech (Elam) to contend with, and Tech wants Vinnie, no matter the problems this creates for her protector Tom or for the gang. To say that Elam steals the show would be an understatement. He's one scary bad guy, leering and mugging it up like ten-miles of really bad road. No one has looked like him before or since. In fact, he so overshadows gang leader Marlowe that the final showdown is between him and Power instead of Power and Marlowe. But then Marlowe never was much of a screen presence. Anyway, despite the big names, the movie remains an Elam showcase since the rest of the cast pretty much low-keys it. I'm just wondering how director Hathaway got little toddler Callie (Dunn) to respond to cues since she can barely walk. Still, she's got a tense, demanding little role, and if Oscars were given to toddlers, she would deserve a Lifetime Award. All in all, the western is both different and underrated, I expect, because it lacks sweeping action. Nonetheless, the lack of sweep is more than made up for in dramatic tension. Besides, the film includes one overriding curiosity—it features what may be Hollywood's handsomest man against what may be its ugliest. Now there's a real face-off.

mgtbltp Watched this again on the new DVD released & all I can say is WOW, I was impressed. This film has vaulted into my top 20 Westerns.First of all from beginning to end its hitting on all cylinders. This is a Stage Station film in the tradition of "The Tall T" & "Comanche Station" of the later Bud Boetticher/Randolf Scott Ranown series, all of the action takes place in the stage station and its immediate surroundings.The opening sequences of a stagecoach crossing the rugged barren wilderness including shots of it passing through snowbound passes are just spectacular. The Black & White cinematography is gorgeous, and add to that the historically accurate use of a team of mules pulling it makes this film one of the best portrayals of stage travel I've seen. Even the stagecoach itself is adorned with a "headlight" type lantern for night travel.This is one of those films where you learn some bits of Western lore, its a good example of what was prevalent in that "golden age" of the Western 1950 -1971 when the audience through both films like this and the abondanza of Westerns on TV were inundated with things western where you were in the aggregate going to a sort of "Western University". Its a knowledge that is getting lost now and a good example is the illogical stupidity and implausible scenarios in the recent remake of 3:10 to Yuma.But I've been digressing. Lets get back to Rawhide.Care is also taken to show how the arriving team of mules is changed out for a fresh team. For those who are not familiar with western staglines most stage stops "stations" were located between 15 to 20 miles apart so that fresh teams could replace the arriving team. Each tandem of driver & shotgun made a run of about 100 miles a day, so they would go through between 5-7 stage stops in a shift. At some stage stations they had lunch or dinner for the passengers, All the aspect of working a stage station was depicted spot on. The set is perfect.Dir Henry Hathaway does an impressive job in this film, his shots and compositions are beautiful & all the actors are convincing. This film boasts Edgar Buchanan's finest performance as Stationmaster Sam Todd, and Jack Elam is his creepiest as Treviss, Tyrone Power is Tom Owens, Susan Hayward as Vinne Holt a tough ex-saloon singer turned protector/surrogate mother of her dead sisters daughter, Hugh Marlow as the gang leader, George Tobias as Gratz, and a great performance by Dean Jagger as the slow on the uptake "one horse horse thief" Yancy. Its got a very well integrated low key un-intrusive to the story "love interest" between Power & Hataway a good example of they way it should be handled in all Westerns.This film should be in anybodies Western Collection, 8/10 or better.