Man From Colorado

Rating:
Summary: Good, but...
Review: Being particularly partial to both Holden and Ford since the early 1940's I might have been influenced by that background in giving this 4 stars. There was nothing wrong with the acting, but I really had a problem with Ford's make-up! He began with a slightly grayish color which became increasingly grayer and darker before the film ended. I assume that it was to exaggerate the whites of his eyes when he opened them widely to portray the extent of his mental illness by the film's end. They should have left that to his usual sensitive acting. Also, I think that the main theme (what happens to some men who fight wars) was short-changed in order to bring in too many other story lines. I would have thought that, being so soon after World War II (1949), the director would have been more sensitive to that aspect of the story. Otherwise, a good, unusual western worth seeing for anyone attuned to that genre and either or both of those excellent actors.

Rating:
Summary: Glenn Ford as a killer judge in a psychological Western
Review: Glenn Ford and William Holden team-up again in another off-beat Western. Ford plays Colonel Owen Deveraux, a sadistic ex-Civl War colonel who kills for the love of killing. Somehow after the war is over he gets an appointment as a federal judge in Colorado, where he finds new ways to satiate his bloodlust by sentencing everyone to death. Holden plays Captain Del Stewart, Deveraux's former adjutant who tries to help as the judge's marshal. Eventually Stewart quits and joins the ex-soldiers forced to become outlaws because the Judge has taken away their gold-mining claims. Even Devereaux's wife Caroline (Ellen Drew), leaves the judge for Stewart. In the end there is a violent confrontation between the two parties. This 1949 film, directed by Henry Levin, represents one extreme of the adult/psychological Western best represented by "Shane" and "High Noon." The problems with this film owe as much to the script as Ford's performance. It is just hard to buy Glenn Ford as psychopath lets alone the fact that his character gets appointed a judge, no matter how corrupt the Republicans were during Reconstruction. Holden, of course, is perfectly cast as the decent but tough good guy. Not a classic Western, but certainly an interesting one overall. Certainly a lot different from "Texas," the film the two made in 1941.

Rating:
Summary: Glenn Ford as a killer judge in a psychological Western
Review: Glenn Ford and William Holden team-up again in another off-beat Western. Ford plays Colonel Owen Deveraux, a sadistic ex-Civl War colonel who kills for the love of killing. Somehow after the war is over he gets an appointment as a federal judge in Colorado, where he finds new ways to satiate his bloodlust by sentencing everyone to death. Holden plays Captain Del Stewart, Deveraux's former adjutant who tries to help as the judge's marshal. Eventually Stewart quits and joins the ex-soldiers forced to become outlaws because the Judge has taken away their gold-mining claims. Even Devereaux's wife Caroline (Ellen Drew), leaves the judge for Stewart. In the end there is a violent confrontation between the two parties. This 1949 film, directed by Henry Levin, represents one extreme of the adult/psychological Western best represented by "Shane" and "High Noon." The problems with this film owe as much to the script as Ford's performance. It is just hard to buy Glenn Ford as psychopath lets alone the fact that his character gets appointed a judge, no matter how corrupt the Republicans were during Reconstruction. Holden, of course, is perfectly cast as the decent but tough good guy. Not a classic Western, but certainly an interesting one overall. Certainly a lot different from "Texas," the film the two made in 1941.