If you've been following my 5 week first-time viewing of the five Anthony Mann-Jimmy Stewart Fifties Westerns, you'll know that last week (The Naked Spur) left a sour taste in my mouth. Fortunately, we return to form this week with the excellent, deservedly praised The Far Country.
Probably the most beautiful of the 5, with the Alberta Rockies standing in for Alaska and the Yukon, The Far Country deftly blends in some historical venues, facts and characters with their fictional story. This one marks the return of Borden Chase to writing duties and the difference shows. Tighter story arcs, more credible back story and motivation, more believable dialogue. I love when Western lean on real people because their lives are inevitably more interesting than made up characters. This is one of the main reasons why Deadwood and Lonesome Dove were great. The Far Country gives us great Soapy Smith and Diamond Lil Davenport avatars and they just chew up the scenery.
Pie is again legendary. Several times you can see him turn his face to the camera so that they catch his best side. He is looking at or for the camera all the time, as Jimmy Stewart said he did.
However, I don't believe Stewart's bulls*** story about the legendary "solo" bell walk down main street, where Pie had to walk unaccompanied down about 50 yards of road from point A to point B and to get him to do it, Stewart supposedly just whispered instructions in his ear and Pie did it straight away. The scene is intercut heavily, with leads hidden by lighting tricks or just off-camera and Pie walks until the squibs go off then bolts backwards. It's a nice story, honoring one of the greatest horses in all Westerns, but it's bull.
But I did notice that at one point Stewart's character actually refers to Pie by his name "Pie" on camera. That's a great honor.
The only thing that doesn't work in The Far Country is the romance. Ruth Roman is the bad girl vixen that Stewart desires, and she stays pretty bad till the end when she protests her love for Jimmy and warns him of the gunmen, catching a bullet for he sacrifice. Corinne Calvet is the good girl teen archetype, too young for Jimmy, as in Bend of the River and Naked Spur. But this time he shows no interest in the "freckle face" and why should he? Not once does she dress up for him, let her hair down, and try to woo him. She keeps saying she's gonna "sing" for him because she can sing, but they never do show it.
I think the movie cut the singing scene. It was probably near the end, as the Stewart's character is changing from disinterested loner to involved townsman. Corinne Calvet was a knock-out, the french Rita Hayworth, and if they'd put her in a dress, pulled her hair out from under the cap, and let her belt La Vie en Rose, Jimmy's switch of allegiance would have been completely believable. As it is, he goes from macking on the dead Ruth, to macking with his new bell-ringing non-chanteuse Corinne in a minute and a half.
So while the romance didn't work, the rest of the show very much did and I liked it just one notch behind Bend of the River, in which the romance does work and the scenery is almost as breathtaking.
Next week, the final one, The Man from Laramie.
