BLACK AND WHITE ON BLU-RAY: The Black-and-White Western.

Everything's better on Blu-ray, especially B&W. 

Notable recent Blu-ray B&W releases include Hitchcock's The 39 Steps (which can now be seen for the work of drop-dead genius it is, thanks to the clarity of Blu-ray), his somewhat under-appreciated masterwork Notorious and, just out, the original The Man Who Knew Too Much.

Westerns are usually though of as color movies, but great saddle sagas were also made in B&W. 

Exclusively for bwphotoprocom.blogspot, Film expert Brian Zabawski reviews the newly-released Blu-ray of Pursued, shot by B&W genius James Wong Howe, and will soon weigh in on The Furies:

BLACK AND WHITE ON BLU-RAY:

The Black and White Western

(Copyright 2013 Brian Zabawski)

By Brian Zabawski

Critics have long called Raoul Walsh’s 1947 western “Pursued”, “the first psychological western.”  Martin Scorsese, in his introduction to the newly released, first time on Blu-ray edition calls it ”the first noir-western.”

Film critic for Sight and Sound Magazine Michael Atkinson chimes in, calling “Pursued” “the first modernist western.” 

With so many firsts attributed to it, ”Pursued” should be required viewing by any serious film buff.  This new Blu-ray makes that viewing a pleasure – all the easier to appreciate its black-and-white cinematography by the renowned James Wong Howe and the dynamic lead performances of top-billed Teresa Wright (she of Hitchcock’s “Shadow of a Doubt”) and Robert Mitchum.

In “Pursued”, Mitchum plays Jeb Rand, a man tormented by a vivid childhood memory of witnessing his family members being killed by a mysterious stranger he remembers only by the distinctively large spurs on his boots.  Mitchum’s character spends much of the rest of the film in pursuit of the killer and his significance to his unusual family life.  The orphaned Jeb is raised by Judith Anderson’s character, Medora Callum. He falls in love with his stepsister, played as an adult by Teresa Wright. Her full brother is overly protective of her - maybe even a little in love with her himself - and sets out to wreck Jeb’s relationship with her.  All the while, on the fringes of this familial conflict, lurks Ward Bond’s character – a judge and frontier politician – who has carried on an affair with Judith Anderson’s mother figure. 

The plotting and conflicted characters of “Pursued” are rightly described as Oedipal.  In fact, the implications behind the psychological torments portrayed in the film were thought to be so disturbing to 1947 audiences that censor boards in several southern U.S. locales banned the film outright.

The inspiration for this story came from a true incident that caused screenwriter Niven Busch (Teresa Wright’s husband at the time) to ponder what it would be like for a young boy to grow up an orphan, who, after witnessing the killing of his own family, is raised by the killers.  Busch provides a perhaps overly simplified Freudian framework to explore this disturbing theme, but he does so with characteristically powerful results.  He thought of the story as a Greek tragedy set in the American west.  Busch was an unusually prolific author of many memorable western novels and screenplays, including “Duel in the Sun”; the noir masterpiece “The Postman Always Rings Twice” (adapted from the James M. Cain novel), and ”The Furies”.  “Pursued” is one of his most notable original screenplays.

Shot in vivid black and white by famed cinematographer James Wong Howe

“Pursued” is not necessarily distinguished for its striking images alone.  This may be due to director Raoul Walsh’s typical emphasis on story and character, and to his penchant for keeping his story as fast moving as possible.  According to the first comprehensive biography of the director, “Raoul Walsh  - The True Adventures of Hollywood’s Legendary Director” by Marilyn Ann Moss – Walsh almost never looked through (or stood alongside) the camera when shooting.  Instead, he would usually hover in the background, often with his back turned to the scene, listening intently to the actor’s reading of the lines of script.  When that rhythm and pacing seemed right to him, he knew he had his shot.  Given this technique,  “Pursued”, as well as such enduring Walsh masterworks such as “High Sierra”, ”White Heat” and “The Roaring 20’s”, contain some of the most penetrating, memorable images in film history.  The ruggedly beautiful scenery of the New Mexico locations used for “Pursued” (Red Rock Mesa, and other locales near Gallup) is captured artfully by Wong – Howe.  Significantly, many scenes were filmed on infrared film stock, all the better to make the cloud formations stand out. 

James Wong Howe was one of the first cinematographers to achieve such a degree of recognition from his peers it could almost be classified as ‘star status’.  Born in China, his Hollywood film career spanned the silent era to the 1970’s.  Until 1933 he was billed as James Howe (or How), reflecting a desire to Anglicize his name, and conceal his Chinese origin.  Nicknamed “Low Key” Howe because of his predilection for that shadowy lighting style, Howe is credited with many cinematographic innovations, including early use of the crab dolly, and a utilization of deep-focus lenses which predated Gregg Toland’s use of the same in “Citizen Kane” by a good decade.  “Pursued” was his sixth collaboration with Raoul Walsh, including such titles as “The Strawberry Blonde” and the WW2 Errol Flynn starrer “Objective Burma”.

Some characteristic ‘low-key’ Howe scenes in “Pursued” include a nighttime shootout and ambush on Mitchum’s Jeb that would not seem out of place in a more contemporary-set film-noir, and the film’s frequent use of scenes where a tormented Mitchum is set in a dark, confining interior.

Wong Howe was eventually honored with two Academy Awards, and readers who want to revel in his black and white imagery, should check out his Oscar winning (or, nominated) work in “Hud” (1963, w/Paul Newman); “Sweet Smell of Success”(1957 – Burt Lancaster, Tony Curtis); and his hyper-expressionistic, fish-eye-lens-crazy work in John Frankenheimer’s “Seconds” (1966).

Whether or not Raoul Walsh actually looked through the camera’s lens while filming “Pursued” is almost immaterial, for there appears a characteristic composition in this film that is seen in several of his other films.  It is the signature way he frames his characters as small figures dwarfed in long shots by the towering buttes of the landscape that looms over them.  This type of shot appears several times in “Pursued” – and he uses it as well in another of his significant westerns “Colorado Territory”(1949).  A crackling good western yarn starring Joel McCrea, Virginia Mayo, and Dorothy Malone, the film is also in black and white and filmed on locations around Gallup, New Mexico.  “Territory” is actually a loose remake of Walsh’s Bogart triumph “High Sierra” from eight years previous, and shares the same W.R. Burnett novel as its basis.  More traditionally action-oriented a western than “Pursued”, “Colorado Territory” makes for enjoyably fascinating viewing when seen alongside “Pursued” and “High Sierra”.  The mountainous landscapes of Bishop, California are also framed by Walsh’s signature long shots, dwarfing over the hunted Roy Earle, played by Humphrey Bogart.  The cameraman on “High Sierra” was Tony Guadio, and on “Colorado Territory” – Sidney Hickox.  Perhaps proving, like Hitchcock, that a director doesn’t always have to look through the camera-lens to make great movies.  (Whether or not Walsh used a director’s viewfinder to frame his set-ups, could not be determined conclusively.)

Today’s audiences can finally appreciate “Pursued” as its makers intended, on this handsome, new Blu-ray edition from Olive Films.  Marvel at an atypically emotional performance from the usually laconic Robert Mitchum, and another memorable character-turn from the versatile Teresa Wright.  And contemplate just how much twisted, tortured, Freudian neuroses can be packed into the durable form of the western genre.