The barroom brawl, the hilltop funeral, the gunfight between homesteader Stonewall Torrey and Wilson - they’re all staged much better than we’d come to expect from Hollywood.Īnd the fact that Stevens brings much of it to us from the perspective of Starrett’s young son Joey, who so quickly comes to admire Shane, is a brilliant touch. He winds up prompting a showdown with Shane.īrandon DeWilde as Joey Starrett, watches a showdown from under the doors of the saloon in Shane (1953)ĭeservedly hailed as one of the great Westerns, director George Stevens brings a realism to the West you won’t find in many other Westerns of the 1950s. And when killing animals, tromping crops and setting fire to cabins doesn’t rout the homesteaders, he sends to Cheynne for a gunslinger named Wilson (Jack Palance). Meanwhile, Ryker has just landed a new beef contract. The arrival of Shane is welcomed by all three, though Marian’s a little concerned by his skill with a gun. His wife Marian (Jean Arthur) and son Joey (Brandon De Wilde) make him cling to that dream. He and his men are trying to intimidate the homesteaders into moving out Joe Starrett is helping to hold them together, convincing one after another not to give up the dream of their own farm on their own land. He helped settle this part of the West and thinks he needs all the land to raise his cattle. They’re doing that to the consternation of Rufus Ryker (Emile Meyer). Alan Ladd is Shane, the mysterious, six-gun wielding stranger who rides into a valley where Joe Starrett (Van Heflin) and a handful of other men are trying to carve out homesteads.
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