Colt .45

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Riding the High Country

In  almost a dozen years of writing about a wide range of movies in general, and westerns more than any other genre, I’ve tried to point out the type of film I happen to be talking about mainly in relation to theme, and digging down to cast an eye over subtext where appropriate. From time to time though, that approach is unsuitable for the simple reason that the movie in question was conceived and shot as an almost pure exercise in entertainment. Now this is just an observation, a statement of fact as I see it, and not a criticism of the work. I see Colt .45 (1950) very much in that light, a movie primarily concerned with delivering an hour and a quarter of polished and fast-moving diversion, with no more than the occasional flick of a hat brim in the direction of meatier matters.

There have been a…

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The Mask of Dimitrios

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Riding the High Country

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To me the most important thing to know about an assassination is not who fired the shot – but who paid for the bullet.

The passage of time can have a nasty tendency to cloud the memory, to cast a kind of nostalgic haze over things and distort reality. On occasion I’ve found this to be the case with films, where fondly remembered movies, those which have earned themselves a special place in the heart over the years, fail to live up to their promise. It’s quite a crushing disappointment to discover that a film we thought was wonderful long ago falls far short of the stellar image we’ve built up in our imagination. Happily though, that’s not always the case, and sometimes it just happens that the film we saw all those years ago really is the little gem we’ve been yearning to see again ever since. The Mask…

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Ruthless

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Riding the High Country

Shakespeare expressed reservations about the worth of comparisons, of course he was talking of summer days while I’m thinking of movies here. Relying on comparisons to provide a taster or sampler for those unfamiliar with a movie is often a tempting expedient. However, I’m not sure it’s a fair approach, frequently doing injustices to filmmakers and perhaps misleading audiences too. Ruthless (1948) is a title which I have heard a few commentators liken to Citizen Kane. Welles’ most talked about work is accompanied by a weighty reputation, one which some viewers reckon it struggles to live up to itself, so it feels especially unjust to thrust Edgar G Ulmer’s movie into its shadow. Aside from the matter of reputations, which ebb and flow anyway, such comparisons have the effect of distracting one from the themes to be found within each discrete work. For me, Ruthless is at heart a…

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