Trust in the audience's intelligence

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From Duncan Shepherd's latest review, the money lines: "I have recited this in some detail, not complete detail, just absolutely essential detail, in the hope of demonstrating something of the moral ambiguity, the psychological complexity, the mythic resonance, the seriousness about life, the trust in the audience's intelligence, which were once -- routinely! -- a part of the Hollywood action film."
It Was a Dark and Stormy Night

Some accidents you get over and some you don't.
Review by Duncan Shepherd
Published August 29, 2002
Duncan Shepherd tells it like it was
I'm going to tell you a story. Not a story of my own, of course, but of an old grade-B Western I taped on TCM some weeks ago. I'll tell it to you much as I might have told it in the lunchroom or on the playground of Oak Knoll Elementary in 1956. I'll keep it as short as I can....
There's this group of riders way down on the floor of a canyon, and another group of riders high on a bluff overlooking them. It's night, and it's hard to see except for a few seconds of lightning flashes, and the credits keep blocking the view, too, but the apparent ringleader of the upper-altitude group is the first to speak. Let's split up, he says. Get going, all of you. You, too, Wes. And then the ringleader is left behind with this one last guy who seems to be all trussed up somehow, and the ringleader is handling him like a sack of flour, laying him down on the ground, completely helpless, and the guy looks up at him, looks him right in the eye, and the ringleader smashes a rifle butt into his face. What the hell's going on here?
He catches up with Wes -- Richard Egan -- outside their hideout by the end of the credits, and we hear him saying, I tell you he died. And Egan says, Died of a broken arm? And the other guy says, You need a drink. Pour me one too, a double. And as the ringleader takes his horse to the corral, Egan goes into the shack where he's greeted warmly by Angie Dickinson, looking younger than you ever knew she was, with her dress pulled down off one shoulder in sexy seÃ±orita style, but Egan just glowers at her, and she says, Can't I be glad you're back? And he says, He's back. He's your husband. And he starts stuffing his stuff into his duffel, and Angie says, You're leaving because of me, aren't you? You can't stand to be this close to me and not have me. And she throws herself at him and says, Take me with you. And Egan shoves her away. And we're still trying to figure out what's going on here.
Then the ringleader comes in and says, What's going on here? And Egan says, I'm pulling out. And the other guy says, Because of that guy back there? They'd have strung him up anyway, I did him a favor. And Egan says, Well, I'm pulling out before you do me any favors. And then he gives him a real earful. When we rode with Quantrill, he tells him, I thought you were the greatest thing that ever came down the pike. I didn't know the difference then between a war hero and a murderer. Now I know. Everyone else still thinks you're great because whenever you pull a job you send back some of the loot to be given out among the poor, a regular Robin Hood, and if one of the robbed happens to get killed, well, you kill one of your own to even the score, only he's not one of your own, he's just some farmer or cowhand you picked up for the purpose. (Now we get it!) And the ringleader says, Well, I can't just let you ride into town, tattle on me, and collect that ten thousand dollar reward. And Egan says, Nope. I want to get as far away from here as I can get. And the other guy says, Well, okay, then, go on and get.
But when Egan heads for the door, Angie throws herself at him again, and says, Take me, take me. And that opens a whole new can of worms. So Egan looks straight at the other guy, man to man, and says, This is between you and her. I never had anything to do with her. And the other guy says, Oh, sure, I know that, don't worry about it. And he turns away to pretend to pour himself a double, but we can see he's reaching for his six-gun as he whirls back around. And even though Egan is headed out the door, he's ready for him and shoots him dead before he can clear leather. Then the posse comes bursting through the door (ah, the other riders!), and one of them notices the dead man's gun is still in his holster, and Angie pipes up and says, Yeah, he never gave him a chance. He shot his best friend and never gave him a chance.
Three weeks later the marshal rousts Egan from the cot in the jail cell and says, Here's what you've been waiting for, a pardon from the governor. Now clear out of here so we can air out this cell. And we can see how well that Robin Hood P.R. has worked, because the lawman keeps baiting him the entire time he's giving him back his belongings, saying, Here's the gun you shot him with, you should be able to auction that off for a pretty penny. And Egan never mouths off at him, just hangs his head and takes it, and then as he's making for the door the marshal says, Wait, you forgot the most important thing, the voucher for the reward. And he stuffs it into Egan's shirt pocket.
So then Egan checks into a hotel for a decent bed, rips up the voucher in the privacy of his room, and goes down to the bar for a drink. But the hotel clerk, who had cocked an eyebrow at the name on the ledger, has already tipped off everyone in the place. And by now there's a popular song going around, "The Ballad of Wes Tancred," about how this yellow-bellied, white-livered sidewinder shot his best friend in the back, and someone strikes it up as soon as he walks in the bar, and Egan goes right up to the singer and stares him down till he puts a cork in it, and then he goes over to the bartender, orders a rye, and says, Drinks are on me. But everyone turns away, too good to drink with him, and he tries to force the guy next to him to accept his hospitality, and someone comes up from behind and takes a poke at him, and fists fly, and Egan holds his own for a while, because he's Richard Egan, but too many guys pitch in and eventually they beat him down, beat him some more after he's helpless, and he stays down, crumpled up on the floor till they back off, and then he gets up and staggers out without a word, and there's this montage sequence, clouds superimposed over his face, as he's reliving the shooting from different camera angles, with "The Ballad of Wes Tancred" ringing in his ears, just riding and riding to get as far away as he can get.
By and by he comes to this lonely stage depot populated by an unthreatening little kid and his limping father. The man is as friendly as can be, and starts gabbing away. Howdy, stranger, you must be headed to Table Rock, it's the only town for fifty miles and my brother-in-law's the sheriff there, quite a man, and why don't you stay for supper? Egan could stand some grub but he doesn't know if he's ridden far enough yet, so he introduces himself as John Bailey, and sure enough when he unbuckles his holster to wash up for supper, the little kid says, Wow, a Colt Peacemaker, the same kind of gun Wes Tancred used to shoot his best friend in the back, like it says in the song. So now Egan's mood turns and he says, Beat it, kid.
But the limping father is still friendly at the dinner table, and he says, I could sure use some help around this place. My last hostler up and quit because he said it was too lonely out here. And Egan says, Sounds good. But no sooner does he get down to work than a rider appears on the horizon, and then another from another direction, and a third from a third direction, and the stationmaster says, It looks like my busy week. And Egan doesn't look happy about it. This time when the stationmaster says, Howdy, strangers, the strangers don't return the salutation in kind. They tell him they're fixing to stick up the payroll stage and they don't want any funny business. Egan just stays out of it, even when they slap the kid and push his gimpy father into the dirt. The strangers round up all the guns in plain sight, but the kid whispers to Egan that his pa has got another one stashed under a floorboard in the bedroom. Egan tells him to tell his pa to leave it there. The kid says, Pa ain't scared. Egan says, Neither are they.
The strangers keep a close eye on the hostages till the stage appears in the distance, distracting them. Then the stationmaster sneaks off to get his gun and takes aim at the robbers from behind, but any chance he might have had is pretty much spoiled when the kid yells out, Pa, don't do it! Thus alerted, the strangers whirl around and gun him down. Egan just stands there and watches. What else can he do? The strangers tell him, Drag that body out of here, and they turn their attention back to the approaching stage. So Egan makes a dive for the dead man's gun, and blam, blam, blam, he gets all three. The kid is so impressed by this fancy shooting that he forgets to cry over his pa. And when the stage pulls up, the guard says, You'll be getting a nice fat reward for this, amigo. But Egan says, Forget it. The guard has never heard of anyone who said forget it to a reward.
So now there's nothing to do except take the kid into town to his next of kin, but before they get there we go on ahead and meet the sheriff ("quite a man") who's getting harangued on two sides by concerned citizens, the newspaper editor and the saloonkeeper. The editor is saying, The cattle drive is due to hit town tomorrow and you've got to do something about it. The saloonkeeper's position is, That's why we put in the railroad, it's good for the economy, I've got to make a living, blah blah. So the sheriff says to the editor, What do you expect me to do? And the editor says, Make those animals behave like civilized human beings. And the sheriff says, Me? All by myself? And the editor says, Either that or we'll all arm ourselves. And the sheriff says, A bunch of shopkeepers with rusty rifles, fat chance you'd have. And the editor says, At least we're not scared. That puts a burr under the sheriff's saddle and he orders them both out, sinking into silent thought and fingering the scar on his cheek.
So then Egan and the kid clip-clop down Main Street and they see the shopkeepers boarding up their establishments and Egan says to one of them, Expecting a twister? And the shopkeeper says, That'd be better. Then Egan drops off the kid with his aunt and uncle and tells them what happened, and the sheriff says, Did they get the guys that did it? And Egan says, I got them all by myself. And the sheriff says, You know, I could sure use some help around here. And Egan says, No thanks, a man could get shot in your line of work. And the sheriff says, Well, won't you at least stay to supper and talk it over? But Egan says, I've got some daylight left and I've got to keep moving. The kid, meanwhile, can't wait to sneak out his bedroom window to follow Egan, and by the time he catches up with him and Egan can bring him back to town, it's too late in the day to move on.
Next day the cattle drive arrives at a fence guarded by a sodbuster with a shotgun, and he tells them they'll have to go around it. But even though the trail boss is John Dehner, who was probably a guest heavy on every TV Western of the Fifties, he's no Genghis Khan of the plains. He's a reasonable guy. He says, Look, this fence wasn't here last year, and I've driven these cows a thousand miles, and I can't turn them into mountain goats now and climb around this here fence. Tell you what I'll do. My boys will take down your fence and put it up again after we've passed and I'll pay you for any damages to your crops. How's that? The sodbuster says, No good. So one of the cowboys throws a lasso around him and they go through anyway, and the sodbuster just stands and watches as his crops are trampled.
So now the sheriff has to go out and talk to the trail boss, and we can see he doesn't want to do it, and he takes a kind of whining and pleading tone, and we wonder what's the matter with him because he's Cameron Mitchell and he smokes cigars and he's a rugged-looking guy, on top of which he's got that angry-looking scar running down his cheek, which everyone is too polite to mention. Nothing like, Pleased to meet you, sheriff, but whoa, I wouldn't be kissing any babies during the next election if I were you! But the trail boss is still being reasonable and he takes pity on the sheriff and says, Look, I told that sodbuster I'd pay for damages. Still will. Now as to that other business, you have to understand my boys have been on the trail for four months and they don't feel much like going to Sunday school. But I'll tell you what. My ramrod will keep them all together and see to it that no one gets too drunk and no one hoorahs the town. That's all I can do. And so Mitchell, who just wants to get out of there and drag his tail back to town, says, Fair enough.
Meanwhile the kid, pestering Egan about how long he's going to stay, muses out loud, If you were married to my Aunt Lorna you'd be my uncle and you'd never have to go. The aunt -- Dorothy Malone -- overhears this and comes to Egan's rescue, blushing a bit. But after shooing away the kid, she asks him herself, How long are you going to stay? And we can see how Egan, catnip to frontier wives, could easily find himself in the same spot he was in with Mrs. Robin Hood. So he says, Maybe if we got the kid a job he'd have something to hold him here and he wouldn't come tagging along after me. And so he goes to the kid and tells him, When I was your age I got a job at a print shop and wild horses couldn't drag me away. What do you say if we see whether the newspaper around here couldn't use some help? And the kid says, Sounds good. So all three of them go down to the newspaper office and ask the editor if he can use any help. And the editor -- Royal Dano -- says, Anybody'd have to be crazy to want to work for a newspaper. And I'll tell you why. You write a story that tells the truth, for instance the truth about how the law stands by and does nothing when a bunch of cattlemen run a farmer off his land, and even as you're writing it you know damn good and well you're just wasting your time, and no one but a fool wastes his time, ergo a newspaperman is ipso facto a fool. Egan has been smiling the whole while till he sees that the sheriff's wife is not smiling. She gets all huffy and says to the editor, Well, I'm sorry we wasted your time. But Egan says, Hold your horses, let's ask the kid how he feels about it. And the kid says, Sounds good. And the editor says, You've got the job.
The three of them are walking home when the cattlemen hit town, and Mitchell rushes up, all hot and bothered, and says to Egan, What kind of fool are you? Get this woman and child home where they can hide till this is all over. And when they get home, Malone feels she must explain, and she says, My husband had an accident and he isn't completely well. And Egan says, What kind of accident? And Malone says, How many kinds are there? And Egan says, Some you get over and some you don't. So Malone breaks down and confides her shameful secret. Her husband was beaten, beaten to within an inch of his life (ah, the scar!), and he hasn't been the same man since. And we're thinking to ourselves how Egan was beaten and afterwards began calling himself by another name. But because Malone thinks Egan is all man, a whole man, a man who killed three men single-handedly, she asks him if there isn't something he could do to help her husband be a man again. Egan says, Uh-uh, he'll have to work that out for himself.
Later that night the ramrod is keeping a rein on the trailhands as promised, but cowboys will be cowboys and one of them is getting pretty drunk and trying to pick a fight, and the ramrod tells him he's had enough to drink and to go get some air instead, and he runs smack into the sodbuster who's in town selling off his things because he's pulling up stakes, and the drunken cowboy is feeling his oats and picks a fight, and the sodbuster socks him on the jaw, so the cowboy pulls his gun and shoots him. The ramrod comes running out and sees what's happened and he puts a pistol in the sodbuster's hand and tells the cowboy to keep his mouth shut. Egan, who had fled the saloon with "The Ballad of Wes Tancred" pounding in his head after the drunk requested it from the piano player, has seen the whole thing from across the street, and seen that Mitchell saw it, too, from farther down the street, though neither of them made a move to intervene. Mitchell, because it's his job to respond to gunshots, belatedly goes over, all nervous and sweaty, and he says, Well, it looks like self-defense but I'm going to have to take you into custody anyway and write a report for the judge. And the trail boss, who has now come up, takes pity on him again and says, Well, I'll let you take him just as long as we're clear it's self-defense. Egan never makes a move.
So now it's time for the hearing, and the whole town turns out for it -- but first, I almost forgot to mention, there's this incident at the newspaper office when a cowboy barges in, all riled up about a front-page editorial branding the shooting a murder, and he starts to bust up the place, tipping over the type case, breaking the kid's arm, tussling with the editor, until Egan jumps in. This time he can handle it because it's one against one and he's still Richard Egan. And we get a gritted-teeth closeup of just his face as he's teeing off on this guy with everything he's got. Mitchell is nowhere to be found through all this, but he's mad about the editorial, too, though he knows it's God's truth. And when he comes through his front door for lunch he finds Egan's hat on the sheriff's hat peg, and he overhears Malone in the kitchen, where she's dabbing a wet cloth at a cut on Egan's brow, saying to him, It's easy to see why the kid thinks you're so wonderful. And Egan says, Is it? And she says, All I know is you're every bit the man he thinks you are. And Egan says, Maybe. And the sheriff slams the door to let them know he's home.
So now we're at the hearing, and the whole town is there, and the judge says to the sheriff, I've read your report, sheriff, and if you don't have anything to add to it I'm going to have to let this varmint go. And the sheriff says, Well, I've got nothing to add. But he takes a long time saying it, and we can see it's really bothering him. And then the newspaper editor, a fool for the truth, jumps up in his seat and says, This is a farce! Everyone in this room knows the sodbuster never carried a sidearm in his life! And the judge says, Be that as it may, unless somebody saw something, my hands are tied. So everyone is looking at Mitchell and he's not saying anything. And then Egan stands up at the back of the room and says, I saw it. Just as at the stage depot, he stands up only after a regular guy has stood up and got shot down first, but then he comes out blazing. I saw the whole thing, he says. I saw that man there shoot an unarmed man and I saw that man over there put a gun in the dead man's hand. What's more, I saw the sheriff see it too. And the judge says to the sheriff, How about it, sheriff? And Egan walks up to the front of the room and, looking down at the sheriff, says to him, Before you answer, know this. Once a lie gets a hold of you, you can never get away from it no matter how far you run, because you're running from yourself. And the sheriff, who doesn't cotton to being backed into a corner, snaps at him, What makes you such an expert on lies and running away? And Egan says, I'm an expert because I'm Wes Tancred. And everyone gasps. Wes Tancred! The man who shot Robin Hood in the back! Murmur, murmur. And the kid drops his chin to his chest, deep in thought. And we can see now how the kid and the sheriff are like two opposite facets of Egan's character, the long-ago innocent who believed in the truth and the sullied adult who lives in shame. And we can see also how he's trying to do for Mitchell what he told Malone he couldn't do, help him be a man again. And then he turns to leave, and everyone's looking at the sheriff, and the sheriff says, Oh, all right, I saw it too, and the cowboys storm out, and the honest citizens gather around Mitchell and pump his hand and pummel his back, and Malone's eyes are shiny with tears, and the kid chases after Egan and says to him in a sheepish little voice, Mr. Tancred, I never really believed that dumb song anyhow. And Egan says, Thanks, kid.
But now the trail boss is in a powwow with the saloonkeeper, who says, Don't worry about Tancred. No one will believe a word he says. It's just the sheriff we've got to worry about. Give me till six o'clock tomorrow to take care of it. And then he says to one of his minions, Go get Jim Breck, tell him to be here by five tomorrow. Some time later, Egan is getting stewed all by himself in some out-of-way dive, a skunk at a lawn party, and the only man who'll go near him is the newspaper editor. Egan says, Sit down, have a drink, tell me how she looked. And the editor says, Aunt Lorna? Why, she's deeply grateful for what you did for her husband. And Egan says, I didn't ask that, I asked how she looked. Did her eyes sparkle? Did she smile that smile? And the editor says, She looked as happy as she used to look. And Egan says, Well, that's all right, then. And the editor's eyes narrow in search of the truth and he says, Now I see. You've marked her for your own. You think if you just hang around long enough, sooner or later she'll come to you. You think if you put her man back on his feet she'll be able to leave him and she'll come to you. And Egan says, Get lost, and he stares into space, thinking we don't know what.
Next day Jim Breck rides into town, and he's DeForest Kelley, better known as "Bones" on Star Trek, but you have to get over that. Everyone aboard the Starship Enterprise was an actual actor beforehand. And he's all duded up in gambler-gunfighter garb, and he goes into the saloon and orders a rye, and Egan walks up behind him and says, Looking for someone? And Kelley turns around with the steely gaze of a professional killer and breaks into a big grin. Wes Tancred! Son of a gun! And we can see in an instant that he's not some psycho like Jack Palance in Shane. And he says with genuine concern, I wondered what ever happened to you. I bet that dumb song has been giving you some grief. And Egan chuckles about it. And Kelley says, You know, the first time I heard that song, I tried to tell the guys, look, I know Wes Tancred, he'd never do anything like that, and you know what? You'd have thought I was running down Santa Claus! And Egan is beaming. And Kelley says, So tell me what really happened there. No, wait, don't tell me, let me guess. And he describes the event almost to a "T," and Egan says, You got it. And Kelley says, I figured it was something like that.
So they sit down at a table, a couple of old friends sharing a bottle of rye and catching up, and then Kelley says, Say, what can you tell me about the sheriff around here? And Egan says, You mean like how fast is he? And Kelley says, Something like that. And Egan says, I've never seen him draw. And Kelley says, Stick around. And Egan says, Well, I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to ask you to pass on this one. The sheriff is kind of a friend of mine. And Kelley says, You and the law, friends? And Egan is still smiling. And Kelley says, Naw, there must be some other reason. And Egan says, That's reason enough. And Kelley says, Well, friends are fine and dandy, but business is business. And Egan says, Well, I'm really serious about this, and just to show you how serious I am, I'm going to tell you that if you want the sheriff you'll have to go through me first. And Kelley kind of shakes his head at the thought and says, Hmm, you and me, I always wondered how that'd turn out. And he's smiling about it. And Egan says, Yeah, I always wondered that myself. And he's smiling about it too. But now that they've come to this conversation-stopper, Egan stands up and says, Well, think it over, and if you want to find out, I'll be in the street. And the timing of this dialogue -- like the timing of that between Egan and the ringleader, the sodbuster and the trail boss, the trail boss and the sheriff, the sheriff and the judge, Egan and the editor -- is perfect. Nothing skimped. Nothing prolonged.
So Kelley comes through the swinging doors and walks over to the hitching post, and he gives Egan a little smile and wave, and Egan returns them, and Kelley comes down the steps, pauses beside his horse as if still considering, then drifts past his horse and out into the street, and Egan quits smiling, and suddenly we're looking at a classic showdown composition, Egan's back to the camera and Kelley in deep perspective down the street. It can still raise a tingle. Two men. Face to face. Ready to kill. Ready to die. Egan takes him, natch, even though the kid comes walking by with his aunt at that moment and, having learned nothing from the death of his pa, he cries out, Mr. Tancred! Mr. Tancred! Egan just gives him a not-now-I'm-busy brushoff and doesn't break concentration. But as he's looking down, lost in thought, at the friend he shot from the front, fair and square, the saloonkeeper takes aim at his back from behind the swinging doors. Mitchell, who's job it is to respond to gunshots, sees what's happening and shoots the saloonkeeper from the blind side. It wasn't exactly a top gun he was facing, and he wasn't exactly facing him, but he still feels pretty good about himself, more like a man. And Egan is grateful. He knows what Mitchell did for him. He knows, as well, what he did for Mitchell. And he knows Mitchell knows.
But then the cowboys come thundering down the street, and the trail boss says, We've come for our boys. And Mitchell says, You'll have to go through us. And the trail boss says, Two guns against fifty? And one of the two says, You don't count too good. And the trail boss looks around and sees shopkeepers with rusty rifles all around him. And Egan says, It's their town. And the trail boss says, Well, they can have it. And the cowboys ride out. And the honest citizens crowd around to pump hands and pummel backs, and Egan says, I reckon I'll be riding out, too, no more reason to hang around. And the kid says, Aw, gee, and Malone slightly stiffens at the news, and Mitchell's eyes dart back and forth between them, but he doesn't see the size of display that would oblige him to try and shoot Egan in the back as he leaves. So he rides off to a fate unknown. The end.
I have recited this in some detail, not complete detail, just absolutely essential detail, in the hope of demonstrating something of the moral ambiguity, the psychological complexity, the mythic resonance, the seriousness about life, the trust in the audience's intelligence, which were once -- routinely! -- a part of the Hollywood action film. (Now we get prepubescent superspies, anti-terrorist skateboarders, film-buff hitmen, etc.) The name of this particular one, hardly a household name, is Tension at Table Rock. Leonard Maltin awards it two stars and one sentence fragment: "Soaper Western with Egan on the lam for a murder committed in self-defense." (Huh?) It was directed by a specialist in the genre, Charles Marquis Warren, who had the bad fortune not to become one of the anointed auteurs, not even to receive an entry in Andrew Sarris's American Cinema, but who on a good day was as good as Budd Boetticher or Anthony Mann. Maybe some other time I'll tell you the story of Arrowhead. Better yet, see it for yourself. AMC shows it often. The one whose story I've just told to you will be repeated on TCM, if you want to see the nuances I left out, during the daytime on September 3.

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Topic - Trust in the audience's intelligence - clarkjohnsen 09:48:29 08/29/02 (0)

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