Rating: 
Summary: Shane
Review: This film has a great setting. Very realistic an unlike most earlier western shoot-em ups has a very good story line. Beautiful scenery, good acting by all. As a young man, this is the first western I saw where a barroom fight actually drew some blood. Good performances by Alan Ladd, Van Hefflin, Jack Palance and Brandon de Wilde. A movie worth watching.
Rating:
Summary: Western Classic
Review: Shane might well be the greatest western ever made and a true American classic. Recently in a New York Times article, Woody Allen of all people considered it the best American film of all time. The movie is about a mysterious stranger who unexpectently comes into a homestead family's life and helps in their battle against a greedy landowner who is threatening them to move off their land. Alan Ladd stars in the title role and he exudes an air of calm control and dark mystery. Shane is an expert gunman and a skilled fighter, but he doesn't want any trouble. He tries hard to avoid a fight in the local saloon, but no matter how hard he tries, trouble finds him. The homestead family is played by Van Heflin, Jean Arthur and the young Brandon De Wilde. Mr. De Wilde is excellent as a wild-eyed youngster who grows to idolize Shane. Mr. Heflin plays the strong, defiant landowner, but also loving husband to his devoted wife, played tenderly by Ms. Arthur, and his son. He stands by his new friend Shane, when the other homesteaders want him to leave when they feel he's stirring up trouble. A young Jack Palance is menacing as an icy hired gun hired to drive the homesteaders off their land. The showdown between him and Shane is a tense and taut showdown. Director George Stevens captures the breathtaking beauty of the American Old West. Shane was nominated for several Academy Awards, but failed to win any. Despite that fact, it remains a brilliant film worth repeated viewings.
Rating:
Summary: Top 5 Western Movies Ever Made
Review: Great movie with wonderful cinematography. I have been to Jackson Hole several times and to see the Tetons will take your breath away. This movie has it all action, suspence, a plot and good acting. Alan Ladd put up a terrific performance all should enjoy. The last scene always brings tears to my eyes as little joey calls for shane to come back. It hits to close to home for when i was a boy of 9 my father left my mother and me and I called to him from our street corner only to see him drive away never to write or call me.
Rating:
Summary: Best Western Ever Made
Review: SHANE is not only the best Western ever made, it may be the best American film. (Note to Ford fanatics: overrated. Forget what your film school profs told you. He was elevated prematurely to the pantheon by dweeb critics in the 60's. He's good--the earlier the better [Stagecoach YES; The Searchers NO] but SHANE is the movie Ford wished he could have made.)What makes SHANE superior are the layers of text and subtext that weave throughout the film, in perfect harmony. It is one of the rare films that gets better every time you see it. It is not just about good v. evil, cattlemen v. ranchers; it is about marital fidelity, the meaning of manhood, community values, American spirit, and sacrifice. Add to all that the superior performances of the actors, starting of course with Ladd, but going right on down the list. Palance is a SEARING presence, and Stevens films him just right (pay close attention to Palance's initial entrance into the saloon). AND you've got the musical score, the cinematography--it's just mind boggling. If you're a parent of young child, especially a boy, this is one film you need to have in your library, and watch several times over the years. It will teach more about what it truly means to be an American than just about anything. (If you subscribe to PC dogma, however, you might as well go ahead and buy Ben Affleck films instead). As for me and my house, we will watch SHANE. Two things to note about the DVD! First, they are able to remove a [goof] from the film and VHS tape: in the opening, as Shane rides in to the ranch, you can see an automobile in the distance, making its way across the shot. Now gone! Second, whoever designed the cover should be shot like Elisha Cook, Jr. On the BACK is a publicity still of Alan Ladd from ANOTHER movie (probably The Carpetbaggers)! He's dressed in this candy... western outfit, something Shane would NEVER wear. It is so ridiculous. I took out the inner chapter notes and placed it over the back cover just so I don't have to see that awful picture.
Rating:
Summary: Shane, The Greatest Western Ever Made
Review: Shane is undeniably the greatest western ever made. Lets start with George Stevens eye for the camera. The cinematic elements of this film are equal to the most beautiful Texas landscapes in Steven's later work "Giant". The backdrop of ominous, dark clouds and the majestic Wyoming Mountains enhance the reality of the small, western town standing as a small, symbolic beacon of the coming of civilization. The onset of settlers carving out their place in the west is also the centerpiece of conflict in this exceptional film. A mysterious stranger named Shane stops at the small family farm of a tenacious settler named Joe Starrett. This ex-gunslinger who longs for a different life is befriended by Starrett and idolized by the farmer's young son Joey. Shane also forms a respectful, unrequited admiration for Starrett's wife Marian, which becomes unmistakable prior to the film's exciting conclusion. As the story progresses, Shane becomes drawn in the settler's struggle against an aging and grasping rancher named Ryker, who desires to protect the open cattle range and drive the "sod busters" from the valley. When Shane and Starrett defend themselves against Ryker's henchmen and dispatch them in the best barroom brawl ever filmed, the desperate rancher calls upon the help of a professional killer for hire named Jack Wilson. The film climaxes with Shane facing Wilson in one of the grittiest showdowns ever seen in Western movies. This film has been a classic since its release in 1953. Alan Ladd is brilliant in the lead role with great supporting performances by Van Heflin and Jean Arthur. However, Jack Palance nearly steals the show in his turn as the cold-blooded Jack Wilson. Shane stands today as a simple, powerful and vastly entertaining picture; an example of flawless visuals and great story telling.
Rating:
Summary: Fantastic!
Review: This set the stage for the antihero western. Shane was one of the pioneering efforts in westerns which made the good guy a grey shaded character instead of the cowboy dressed in white and riding a white horse. Shane was an everyday man who rose to an extraordinary occassion. To say that this movie displayed great acting is an understatement. If you watch the credits closely you will see Jack Palance's first name. Walter! Run out and get on your mustang and get this NOW!
Rating:
Summary: Call me Shane.
Review: The good guys wear white hats, the bad guys wear black hats - and Alan Ladd has obviously borrowed his outfit from Roy Rogers, but that doesn't change the fact that "Shane" is a born classic from the very start. A simple but very well told story about good vs evil. The photography and the music-score absolutely breathtaking! Must be in everyone's short list of the 10 best westerns ever!
Rating:
Summary: The Western Cinimatic Classic
Review: Shane is probably the definitive western plot, it has a myth built into it like know other film I have ever seen. It was I believe born of a time and a place of honor and virtue that is little seen in films of today. Shane at first is a little on edge, spent a little too long in the wild country, then his strength of character is misinterpreted by the local ranchers as cowardice, trying as he is to change his ways, but Shane standing in the rain soon dispels this opinion. When he goes back into the bar where he was rousted. There is a great scene here when the cowpuncher Chris tries to bully Shane once more. The cowpuncher next to Chris says deal me out, Chris says what's the matter? and the puncher that you never see says, let's just say I'm superstitious. I've seen dam few bloody noses in all the fights I have seen on film but Shane procures the best. What I really love about this film is that you never find out who Shane really is or just what kind of a man he really is and the kind of metal that he is made of until the end of the film, then it's too late. Just enough time for the boy to say goodbye to Shane, Shane tells him to grow up strong and straight, and to take care of his folks and in his passing everyman says goodbye to the childhood within. The boy calls out in vain the moment is forever. It's one Great film, to all those who love the sentiment of the western and have never seen Shane I envy you that viewing.
Rating:
Summary: FANTASTIC
Review: I love this movie and consider it to be one of my all time favorites. Alan Ladd is always terrific in every movie he is in. I loved the story line and he was great as a gun slinger in his indian style clothes. I love Van Heflin too, he was always a wonderful actor and played the part of the homesteader very well, he is a dynamic actor in any part he plays. Its always good to see the bully's get their comeuppence. And Shane made it happen. I just wish the ending could have left him there starting a better life than the one he had always lived.
Rating: 
Summary: Cheesy story marred by bad filmmaking
Review: All right, I'm going to bash some of these people's favorite Western, so I might as well try to defend myself. I laughed for 2 minutes straight when I saw this thing on the AFI 100; really, it boggled my mind. Ahem, to begin with, the story itself is rather hackneyed. In seventh grade english, years and years ago, I was forced to read the novel Shane, and a few things struck me: cardboard characters, a boneheadedly obvious plot, and a whole heap of dramatic complaining about events and characters that I saw no reason to really care about, not to mention that the taciturn Shane is one of the more annoying protagonists ever invented. Everyone talks about how great this guy is, but he's just another in a long, long line of close-mouthed reluctant heroes, and the classic examples are on a higher plane than this. I can deal with the fact that westerns are supposed to have flimsy plots and always tie up with things set right(Don't get me wrong: I _like_ Westerns: Stagecoach, pretty much everything with Clint Eastwood, the magnificent seven, and several others were fine examples of their genre), but all the sentimental whining about plot elements and characters that are as artificial as any MacGuffin just turns the stomach. Some time after that, a few friends on a quest to watch a bunch of old films roped me into a night that included the film Shane. To my amazement, hollywood production had managed to make it even worse! The fights were either mischoreographed(just look at the reviews, even favorable ones, below) or completely undramatic, the acting (save for Palance as a fine cardboard-villain) is either ridiculously overdone or flatly underdone, sometimes in the same scene, and the film as a whole is just not that interesting. There's some mild heartwarming possibilities with Shane and the boy, but a few passable scenes do not a great(even good) film make. Because of that and the fact that it's even watchable, the film gets two stars.
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