[Warning: this review is only for people who have seen this film. Possible spoilers] I've seen this movie at least 4 times over the years and it always leaves me scratching my head. It's a fascinating--even experimental--combination of western, film noir and psychological melodrama, with a murky and confusing story that often throws believable motivation to the winds. From the beginning it's told mostly in flashback, as Robert Mitchum recounts what he can remember of his turbulent and violent childhood to his new bride and foster sister (Teresa Wright). However, the movie often cheats by showing us scenes that he couldn't possibly have remembered because he wasn't there (e.g. the ones with Judith Anderson as his foster mother and Dean Jagger as his murderous nemesis). It all has something to do with a feud between two families that began when Mitchum's father had an affair with Anderson, the wife of Jagger's brother. During a violent shootout, which is witnessed mostly as flashing spurs by Mitchum as a boy while he's hiding, his entire family is slaughtered by Jagger and is men. Have I made myself clear? I didn't think so. At any rate, when Jagger finds out that not only did Mitchum escape, but that Anderson has adopted and raised him along with her own son and daughter, he is determined to finish the job, no matter what. He thereby spends the next 10 or 15 years harassing Mitchum with death threats and generally making his life miserable. Now why does Jagger go to all the trouble of stalking an innocent boy who had nothing to do with a situation that didn't even involve Jagger directly? How has he been able to get away with the murder of an entire family after all these years, even to the point of becoming a judge? Who knows? One of the most bizarre plot twists in the film occurs when Wright decides that she will marry Mitchum and then kill him on their wedding night because he shot her brother (in self defense, even though that doesn't seem to matter to her). Anyway, it doesn't help that the sleepily complacent Mitchum is too laid back to be convincing as someone who's tormented and haunted by bad dreams of a traumatic childhood. He never seems be suffering from anything more than a mild hangover. Paging Kirk Douglas! He would have had the right intensity and vulnerability for this part. On the plus side, James Wong Howe's photography is often stunning, and Max Steiner's boomingly symphonic score often enhances the drama. All-in-all, `Pursued' intrigues and frustrates in about equal measure.
