DAY OF THE OUTLAW (1959)

Known more as trivia punchline than for directing (‘What one-eyed director got Hollywood’s 3-D movie craze going?’), André De Toth was far more interesting than his rep suggests.  This late entry one of his most interesting and certainly one of his toughest.   Shot ‘flat,’ in unglamorous b&w (lenser Russell Harlan between two high-profile TechniColor jobs the same year: RIO BRAVO*; OPERATION PETTICOAT), it’s a bleak wintry Western that opens in commonplace fashion as gruff rancher Robert Ryan rides into town to confront the homesteader who took his gal (Tina Louise) and now threatens his land by running barbed wire across once open field.  But this all abruptly changes when Burl Ives and his gang of outlaws come to the little town with 60 thou in stolen coin and take over the place till the weather improves for their getaway.  But time may be running out since Ives needs a gunshot taken out of his chest and the operating ‘surgeon’ can’t promise recovery.  Scripter Philip Yordan’s rep was for rewriting the same basic Western in various genres, but here, abetted by De Toth’s uncompromising vision, the film is exceedingly grim, violent, nihilist, pushing the 1959 envelope in a manner a major studio release would never have let a journeyman like De Toth get away with.  The film somewhat reminiscent of one of those Anthony Mann/James Stewart moral Westerns (DOUBLE-BILL - see THE MAN FROM LARAMIE/’55), though Mann would have probably used an electric cattle-prod to jumpstart David Nelson’s ‘good’ bad guy act.*

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY:  *Lenser Russell just off working RIO BRAVO with kid brother Ricky Nelson.  Yikes!  He couldn’t act either, but at least had Elvis Presley’s lip-curl snarl down pat.