Shane (1953)

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April 2, 2021 by Roy Murray

This week we have another film that I have heard lots about but have never actually seen. Based on a 1949 novel, this is also my first classic western, so yee-haw! The film is based on the events of the Johnson County War between large ranchers and small farmers on the American frontier. After a number of conflicts, lynchings and shoot-outs between both sides, President Harrison had to send the cavalry in to sort it all out but by then it had entered the mythology of the American West.

After the Civil War in America, the west was opened up by the Homestead Acts that allowed anyone to settle and work the land. Shane, a mysterious man with guns, rides into a valley and starts helping on a farm with Homesteader Joe Starrett and his family. Starrett and his friends are being intimidated by cattle baron, Rufus Ryker and his violent cowboys. Shane goes to town and gets in an altercation with one of Ryker’s men, Chris Calloway. This leads to a later bar-room brawl that Shane wins with Starrett’s help. Ryker hires Jack Wilson, a notorious gunman who murders another one of the homesteaders. This spooks the settlers. Ryker burns down a house while they are at a funeral and they resolve to stay. Ryker invites Starrett to a meeting but Calloway warns Shane this this is a trap. Shane fights Starrett to stop him rushing in to his doom. Shane then goes to town and kills Wilson and Ryker. He rides out of the valley wounded with Joey Starrett calling after him.

Alan Ladd played the iconic hero of the movie. He had already perfected the image of the new cool gangster in film noir so his face was recognisable to audiences. I found him a bit too Hollywood star-ish with his big head of hair and smooth looks but back in the 1950s he was a new breed of actor. Van Heflin played Starrett with good energy and a sincerity through the film. Jean Arthur was already an established star in movies like Mr Smith Goes to Washington and at 50 she was an unusual choice for the role of Starrett’s wife.

The relationship between Shane and her was the weirdest part of this western. Maybe it was the times back then but audiences saw nothing unusual in the fact that they spent most of the time gazing longingly at each other. Starrett acknowledged the fact and the triangle seemed to be played to highlight the essential goodness of everyone struggling and making sacrifices for each other. Jack Palance inhabited the character of Jack Wilson with a snake-like menace that set the bar for Western bad-guys and got him nominated for an Oscar. Brandon DeWilde played young Joey Starrett with a naivety that gave the film its overall optimism.

What made this film different to previous Westerns was its realism. The set was built specially for the film on location in Wyoming. It was one of the first films to try and stay authentic to the historical period rather than using shop-new Hollywood costumes (apart from Jean Arthur’s terrible wig). At one stage they replaced the cattle because they looked too well-fed. It was one of the first films to be made in widescreen and the cinematographer Loyal Griggs won the Oscar for the way in which he used telephoto lens to make the mountain range loom large over the landscape in every shot.

The director, George Stevens, cut his teeth working on Laurel & Hardy films before moving on to comedies. During the war he helped liberate Dachau and the experience made a strong impact on him. He considered this as his war movie and he made sure that audiences experienced the violence of the action. The sound of the gunfire was made extra loud by firing them into garbage pails. Wires were rigged up to every actor who got shot so that they were jerked nearly out of their boots when the gun fired. There were no overly theatrical deaths in this movie and the scene where Jack Wilson shoots the homesteader in the muddy street is considered the start of graphic violence in Westerns.

Interesting fact – the dialogue between Shane and the cowboys in the bar-room was a direct influence for De Niro’s iconic “You looking at me? Well, who else would I be looking at?” monologue in Taxi Driver.

“Shane. Shane. Come back!”

Joey Starrett