Jimmy Fucking Stewart

i like the guy who is givin out wings.

from the local library along w/Winchester '73 I also checked out THE FAR COUNTRY, which is another gem. Beautiful location shooting in Alberta, though it takes place in Skagway, AK and Dawson City, in the Yukon. Jimmy is a deeply unsentimental cattle driver who has been moving a herd up north with partner Walter Brennan, and despite his best intentions he finds himself making friends (and just as many enemies) along the way, the former including Ruth Roman, Jay C. Flippen, Corinne Calvet, etc, latter including a bunch of fine Western stock actors like John McIntire, Jack Elam, and others. He doesn't want to have anything to do with either his new friends or new enemies, but eventually circumstances dictate he has to choose a side.

Like other Mann westerns it's got a lot more going on than the back of the DVD would suggest, and a leisurely pace that allows for most of the supporting characters to reveal themselves without rushing it and without relying on stock traits. Lots of standouts there.

It's also being released in the UK soon via Arrow, which has me hoping it will follow suit in the U.S.; this DVD looked decent enough but the scope of the film deserves a better treatment on blu-ray.

https://images.arrowfilms.com/Images/3e9d2414-7773-45a2-b94b-71422f3b81a3.jpg

I binged a lot of his Westerns a year or 2 ago thru the library. Reading the reactions here makes me think that's not a good way to view movies, cause these all blur together in my mind now. But I thiiiink Winchester 73 was my fav. (I was thinking the shootout in the rocks was from Bend of the River!)

Mann's films are so good that I can only assume his status relative to other filmmakers from his era is simply due to him being a director whose personality was not front-and-center, a guy whose reputation was perhaps that of a workmanlike craftsman rather than someone who chose interesting projects and elevated them seemingly every single time. I've yet to see one of his films that wasn't at least very good and most have been great.

yeah Bend of the River has a climactic gunfight at a river, near some rapids.

ok now I remember Far Country, really liked that one. Stewart + Brennan, how can you go wrong. Plus the judge was a good villian.
I don't think I've ever seen The Man From Laramie...

Anthony Mann, master director of noirs and westerns in the '40s and '50s

Bend of the River was filmed entirely on location in Oregon. I can recognize a fair number of the places it was shot.

Just seen The Naked Spur and I'm surprised by just how much he still moves me when he has fear in his eyes or just looks anxious. I seen Vertigo a long time ago and I almost can't believe that he had a similar effect on me.

Hard to prove but I think that there's just a bit of James Stewart in so many American comics with mystery/suspense plots.

From the 50s/60s

he's the embodiment of the noble good dude in a lot of ways, but when he's unhinged in his performances (which is pretty frequently), it's believable and often frightening. he shows a deep fury in some of the roles which seems impossible to rein in.

even in it's a wonderful life, as things start to fall apart and he starts to lash out, he starts to act more like a family annihilator than a family man.

I had "vertigo" on a computerized Scrabble rack today (I think the letters were even in order) with nowhere to play it. Found an open 'n' on the board and laid "revoting."

stewart is so great in conflict with himself, those flawed human moments, his reactions are really nuanced & true to life

He's more frightening than John Wayne.

stewart is so great in conflict with himself

hell, yes. his best moments on film are sublimely nuanced and calibrated bits of facial expression or physical tension. there are various close-ups in It's a Wonderful Life that are just killer.

I think Ebert said something about how Stewart's combat experience really shown through in most of his post-war performances.

Oh, good point!

I didn’t really know anything about his military service until I just now read up in his Wikipedia page. Seems to me other guys worked on USO-type stuff and propaganda films but he was flying Bomber missions to Germany.

yeah his access to that idk “extra gear” that he can shift into must come from that experience for sure, or at least adds to it… he’s not afraid to explore the darker psychological stuff

It really came out with Hitchcock and Anthony Mann, but seems to have always been there to some degree.

He's more frightening than John Wayne.

ts: crazy-eyed menace vs cold-eyed menace