US 127m Dir: Howard Hawks Key Cast: John Wayne and Montgomery Clift
Based on: The Chisholm Trail by Borden Chase (Story serialised in The Saturday Evening Post)
It's hard not to watch this film about a huge cattle drive and not be impressed by the production. The majority of scenes feature vast numbers of cattle and loads of horses and somehow they managed to wrangle all these animals and make the film with them.
The film tells the story of the first (fictional) cattle drive from Texas to Kansas. The rancher who leads it, Thomas Dunston (John Wayne), falls down hard on people who don't follow his rules and this causes increasing conflict with his adopted adult son Matthew (Montgomery Clift). As the cattle drive draws closer to its destination, the conflict threatens to have deadly consequences.
This is a film that isn't what it first appears to be. It is epic and sweeping and there are fights against Native Americans and gunfights and all the stuff that you expect from a Western. But this is really all just dressing for a film which is a character study of a father/son relationship. Dunston becomes increasingly unhinged as the film progresses (he has quite a high body count here) and Matthew is left to struggle with the fact that Dunston is essentially his father but is acting in a way which Matthew completely disagrees with. The film cleverly separates them and builds tension to an inevitable showdown which doesn't necessarily go the way you might imagine it will.
I did think there were some issues with the pacing here. It takes a good long while before the film really gets going properly, feeling very episodic before it eventually pits the two leads against each other. The second half is full of tension but the climax comes with less than ten minutes of the film to go. I think the climax works but it feels a little on the rushed side and it would have been nice to see a proper epilogue.
A common trope of Western films is the cowboys coming into conflict with Native Americans. That is present here and it's frustrating because the plot doesn't require them at all. Not unexpectedly, the film has no interest in any sort of nuance and never considers the way White settlers are treating the native people. There is also a depiction of one Native American characters which is problematic. It's a relatively small part of this film and so it doesn't ruin it but nonetheless it is wrong, unnecessary and makes the film less enjoyable to watch.
Overall though, a strong Western with a fascinating central relationship.
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