The Ox-Bow Incident (1943)

In essence, the presence of Henry Fonda was enough for me to decide to watch this film. Fonda’s the kind of actor who is just always worth watching (at least, in all my experience), and a film like this has a strong enough reputation in and of itself that it made it a no-brainer. Of course, as always, I waited for it to be a reasonable enough price that fell into my hands (which adds that thread of excitement to the acquisition itself) before I picked it up. I was out of the mood for westerns, or perhaps even an impression of the film that didn’t match its actual nature, for some time now and so put it off, but (as one might guess from the fact that I’m reviewing it) decided to watch it today.

Gil Carter (Fonda) and Art Croft (Harry Morgan) are two drifters who wander into the town of Bridger’s Wells, Nevada to find something to do. They happen upon the local bar and ask what there is to do, the local drunk Smith (Paul Hurst) wandering about behind them, and surly rancher Farnley (Marc Lawrence) starting a fight with Gil over the idea that he might be a rustler because he’s new in town. When Art takes Gil out to clear his head (and his stomach) after his many drinks and short fight, a rider comes careening into town on horseback only to run full tilt into the bar and announce the death of Farnley’s friend and partner Larry Kinkaid. Smith continues his bemused and drunken tirades at this, encouraging the idea of forming a lynching posse to find the men responsible. Others chip in with their own belief that hanging is the best approach, with local shop proprietor Arthur Davies (Harry Davenport) acting as the only voice of the law and reason, suggesting the men should be given trial before a hanging, but finding his voice lost to Farnley’s anger, Smith’s cold sense of humour, and the voices of many other men who are so fully in favour of it. Davies sends Croft and Carter to bring Judge Tyler (Matt Briggs) and the Sheriff back to talk sense and law into the men. Unfortunately, only the Sheriff’s deputy is present, Deputy Mapes (Dick Rich), who Croft and Carter were already warned would be no help. Tyler and Davies are no help in stopping the mob, who manage to ensnare the religious Sparks (Leigh Whipper) as they go to find the three men accused of being responsible in the middle of the night. The lead they gain comes from Major Tetley (Frank Conroy), who brings his son Gerald (William Eythe) and assisstant Poncho (Chris-Pin Martin), who identify three men leading some of Kinkaid’s cattle. They find them in the middle of the night, being Juan Martinez (Anthony Quinn), Donald Martin (Dana Andrews) and Alva Hardwick (Francis Ford). A makeshift trial and what can only be described as a kangaroo court proceeds to try the men, to the frustration of the handful of souls interested in real justice.

I shrugged at dropping this disc in today because the running time is only 75 minutes, and that’s usually a mark of fast enough pacing that I ought to be drawn in quickly even if my instinct is not to go for a film of such an age, with the expectations that follow it (an extra-staginess being at the forefront, as well as a similar feeling of melodrama). Imagine my surprise to find the film was almost devoid of music, very subdued and terse in dialogue. It’s not like other westerns of the time, and it’s not really specifically a western at all, though of course it has the setting and the mentality of a world that is still being formed, with civilization meeting the wilderness that lacks a specifically drawn system and clashing over this. There isn’t really a starring role, either, for all that it’s called a Fonda picture. It drifts in and out of focus on characters, with the interesting feeling that Croft and Carter are our windows into this town and its people, and the events taking place, without having voice-over or other narration to tell us this directly, which allows the film to move completely over and follow another group or pair of characters at any given time. We have our own view of things, but we have the connection of, okay, it is primarily Croft, but still not exclusively.

The film is actually pretty dark, with Smith’s sense of humour about hanging being slightly amusing but mostly disturbing (I’ll resist the similar sense of humour that wants to call his actions “gallows humour”), and the coldness of Farnley that is borne not of emotionless evil or clichéd “bad guy-ness,” but of loyalty to a friend of many years. We’re not opposed to Farnley getting justice, certainly, we’re just wary of whether this will give it to him, and the manner in which he’s carrying it out. Tetley is probably the most vile, using the events as an excuse to try to “man up” Gerald, dressed constantly in a Confederate uniform (that is alluded to be nothing more than gesture, and not the actual relic of his own past battles) to feed his sense of pride, honour and authority, which are all trapped in his clear lust for control and power, to be perceived as something he clearly isn’t but desperately wants to be. The sick joke of this is that no one really respects him, despite his belief that his actions will encourage it. Mapes is not much better, also interested in power, but more open and clumsy about it, bear-like in manner and appearance as he attempts to prove that he has authority as a Deputy, even when he doesn’t, feeling that somehow being made a legal source of power gives him power beyond the law that bestowed it on him.

Carter and Croft are not saints, either, both being reluctant to get too terribly involved for fear that the mob could turn on them as drifters, while Gerald’s growing sense of disgust and discomfort at the events is not enough to give him power over his cowardice. Even Davies oversteps his bounds of goodness as he tries to use a letter Martin writes to his wife to prove to Tetley that the group is innocent, enraging Martin, who feels that the letter is no one else’s business. Sparks is the most consistently good, but still does little to actually interfere with the actions that he claims are budging too far into the territory of God. Smith and Jenny Grier (who is played by Jane Darwell) are the most despicable in character, though this relegates them to the role of assistantship to the ones who actually attempt to have control over the mob. Neither seems to feel any concern over guilt, being more interested in actually hanging people than worrying about who to hang or whether they should be hanged.

Performances all around are actually somewhat more in the style that Fonda himself was known for, all very quiet but pointed, with economic dialogue and action. Anthony Quinn manages one of the less embarrassing European-as-Mexican performances of the western era, looking less unrealistically and falsely swarthy, and speaking Spanish well enough to be at least taken as a fluent learner, even if not a native speaker. His character is also interestingly distant, disinterested in defending himself in the face of a group of people who clearly have no interest in doing anything but what they already plan to do, even as the seemingly honest Martin tries his best to answer truthfully and defend the three men, including the extremely confused Hardwick, who makes vague attempts at defense that even he can’t keep track of, only to be reduced to begging when convinced they might actually go through with their hanging plans. It’s amazing how well-developed and rounded all these characters feel despite the low level of open characterization the film has, which is a credit to the performers and to director William A. Wellman.

Much of the film–forced by wary 20th Century Fox head Darryl F. Zanuck to film on sets despite being set outdoors–is shot with sharp editing (there are not many cross-fades and fades, despite the relative popularity of that approach around that time) and an interesting focus on closeups. There are some especially interesting movements chosen, occasionally focusing on a character as they rant about the justice of hangings as the camera slowly zooms in on them, or occasionally the opposite in other scenes, all serving to push the character into a sort of emotional focus as well, in a way that I don’t know if I can fully describe. It just seems to strangely magnify the character rather than the image or the actor, allowing us to see the flaws and imperfections of what they say more clearly, despite the fact that nothing about what they say is being audibly enhanced.

A damn fine movie.