After banging on about the sea change in Westerns from the 1940s to the 1950s in my reviews of THE TALL T and MAN OF THE WEST on this site recently, I watched 1959s WARLOCK unfold with a certain set of expectations in my head.
At first glance, WARLOCK appears to be a western of the old school, not that far removed from earlier classics like MY DARLING CLEMENTINE or THE WESTERNER. In fact, it even shares some plot similarities with John Ford's 1946 Wyatt Earp biopic. But the key difference here is that in the older style of western, the immutable Code of the West is the salvation for men such as Earp, but in WARLOCK it is the millstone that will drag them into the abyss.
For Johnny Gannon (Richard Widmark), the Code causes him to leave behind the lawless San Pablo ranch cowhands lead by the increasingly psychotic Abe McQuown (pronounced McEwan), to accept the post of Deputy Sheriff, eventually bringing him into conflict with his old gang, which includes his own kid brother, and finally making him face up to hired gunslinger Clay Blaisedell (Henry Fonda).
For Blaisedell, though he initially believes he can leave his old life and marry local beauty Jessie Marlow (Dolores Michaels), the Code re-asserts its grip when Blaisdell is forced to confront his own partner Tom Morgan (Anthony Quinn) in a street shoot-out, and he realises that he will never escape his destiny as a gun-for-hire, no matter how he tries.
(Incidentally, I disagree with another reviewer here who claims Anthony Quinn's line "I won!" as he gasps his life out on the Warlock street means only that Quinn won the draw. I believe that line signifies that Quinn has proved that Fonda cannot escape his fate as a hired killer. The only way for Fonda to prove he'd changed would have been to NOT shoot Quinn. So in that sense Quinn won not just the draw but also the philosophical point that Fonda would never change.)
The Tom Morgan character has no loyalty to the Code. He simply enjoys his life as a "friend" of the great Clay Blaisedell. His motivation is that at Clay's side, men fear him and, though they may think him just a "cripple", they'd never dare say it aloud. Without Clay, Morgan would be just another casino owner.
But ultimately, you could say Morgan sacrificed his life to save Clay from himself. Because without Morgan's manoeuvrings, Clay may well have tried to settle in Warlock and would probably have ended up "backshot" by some old crony of Abe McQuown.
So, not the simple tale of the west it might at first appear, WARLOCK is a clever, subtle and insightful look at the psychological motivations at work in this deceptively complex three-way conflict.
A movie definitely worth more than one viewing ...
At first glance, WARLOCK appears to be a western of the old school, not that far removed from earlier classics like MY DARLING CLEMENTINE or THE WESTERNER. In fact, it even shares some plot similarities with John Ford's 1946 Wyatt Earp biopic. But the key difference here is that in the older style of western, the immutable Code of the West is the salvation for men such as Earp, but in WARLOCK it is the millstone that will drag them into the abyss.
For Johnny Gannon (Richard Widmark), the Code causes him to leave behind the lawless San Pablo ranch cowhands lead by the increasingly psychotic Abe McQuown (pronounced McEwan), to accept the post of Deputy Sheriff, eventually bringing him into conflict with his old gang, which includes his own kid brother, and finally making him face up to hired gunslinger Clay Blaisedell (Henry Fonda).
For Blaisedell, though he initially believes he can leave his old life and marry local beauty Jessie Marlow (Dolores Michaels), the Code re-asserts its grip when Blaisdell is forced to confront his own partner Tom Morgan (Anthony Quinn) in a street shoot-out, and he realises that he will never escape his destiny as a gun-for-hire, no matter how he tries.
(Incidentally, I disagree with another reviewer here who claims Anthony Quinn's line "I won!" as he gasps his life out on the Warlock street means only that Quinn won the draw. I believe that line signifies that Quinn has proved that Fonda cannot escape his fate as a hired killer. The only way for Fonda to prove he'd changed would have been to NOT shoot Quinn. So in that sense Quinn won not just the draw but also the philosophical point that Fonda would never change.)
The Tom Morgan character has no loyalty to the Code. He simply enjoys his life as a "friend" of the great Clay Blaisedell. His motivation is that at Clay's side, men fear him and, though they may think him just a "cripple", they'd never dare say it aloud. Without Clay, Morgan would be just another casino owner.
But ultimately, you could say Morgan sacrificed his life to save Clay from himself. Because without Morgan's manoeuvrings, Clay may well have tried to settle in Warlock and would probably have ended up "backshot" by some old crony of Abe McQuown.
So, not the simple tale of the west it might at first appear, WARLOCK is a clever, subtle and insightful look at the psychological motivations at work in this deceptively complex three-way conflict.
A movie definitely worth more than one viewing ...