Hangman's Knot [DVD] [2006]

Between 1951 and 1954 the prolific Randolph Scott completed six westerns for Hungarian director Andre de Toth in between times he still found time to make a couple more westerns most notable of which was the highly rated and commercially successful HANGMAN'S KNOT (1952) A Scott-Brown Production for Columbia Pictures. Written and Directed by Roy Huggins. This was Huggins only film as director. Later he moved into television and had such series as MAVERICK and THE ROCKFORD FILES to his credit.

The story is of a small band of Confederate soldiers led by Major Matt Stewart (Randolph Scott) who following an attack a Union gold shipment discover from a Union soldier survivor that the war has been over a month. Lee Marvin plays one of the soldiers in his first of several films with Scott; another of the soldiers is young Claude Jarman Jr. Most of the action takes place in the Sierra Stage Line Way Station, where the soldiers are pinned down along with the stagecoach passengers and station keepers by a renegade band posing as the lawmen led by Quincy (Ray Teal) who were after the gold. Among the passengers are former Union army nurse (Donna Reed) and her no-good fiancée (Richard Denning). The tension rises as the advantage shifts from one side to the other before the leading up the eventual final showdown. A credit to all concerned with high production values throughout.

Hopefully Columbia will digitally re-master other fifty-odd year-old Randolph Scott Westerns like the wonderful RIDE LONESOME (1959) and his penultimate film COMANCHE STATION (1960) they deserve the best of treatment and care for future generations to enjoy.

This is a film that deserves to be better known, particularly by those fans of Randolph Scott's later work with director Budd Boetticher (The Tall T, Commanche Station, Ride Lonesome etc). A fascinating transitional work, it's also a one-off vehicle for director Huggins, who went on to direct the Rockford Files for TV.

As Scott grew older in his acting career, he made predominately Westerns. At the same time his face grew harder, more sinewy and austere. Something of his matinee idol looks and southern accent remained, but age brought something else - a moral gravitas that added immeasurably to his on-screen presence. Finally the 'Scott character' achieved a magisterial quality - a characteristic that added immeasurably to the ironic resonance of his last film Ride The High Country.

In Hangman's Knot, Scott plays a Confederate officer who only learns that the Civil War is over after a successful action in which his group take a gold shipment from Union soldiers. He and his men agree to return home, each with their share of the booty, but run across some outlaws who corner them in a way station, laying siege to them.

It's a situation familiar to those who know those later Scott-Boetticher masterpieces, and the familiar hallmarks are already in evidence. Even the same locations are utilised. Like the later films with a different director, this is a morality play, almost a chamber drama, where Scott makes a dignified stand of principle. In Hangman's Knot, those with the dark hearts are both outside the way station's walls waiting to pounce, as well as inside (a characteristic performance by Lee Marvin, reminiscent of that he gives in The Big Heat). These are the men that Scott's character, Stewart, cannot relate to: those without honour or moral courage, greedy, cruel men. For Scott, as he says in one of those later films, 'there are some things a man can't ride around' and these are the choices that have to be made. A man needs to face up to his options in life and live with himself on or off the trail. When he tells Marvin here that he 'never really knew (him) at all', we know the moral battlelines have been drawn, just as distinctly those that existed between the warring states.

At first the gold is merely the spoils of war. Then it becomes a short cut to happiness, an unexpected reward for the men's trouble, and a compensation for the loss of the War. Finally it is just a moral encumbrance, both to body and mind. By the end of the film, as Scott and the boy let the heavy saddle bags slip off their shoulders, the sense of relief is tangible - one which isn't just physical.

A film well worth investigating, full of artistic resonance and anticipations. And if you haven't seen the later Scott-Boetticher vehicles, some of the greatest B-Westerns ever made, see this as a taster.

Columbia Pictures presents "HANGMAN'S KNOT" (1952) (81 mins/Color) (Dolby digitally remastered) --- Starring Randolph Scott, Donna Reed, Frank Faylen, Richard Denning & Lee Marvin --- Directed by Roy Huggins and released in November 15, 1952, our story line and film, It's 1865 in Nevada and a unit of Confederate soldiers attack a Union troop carrying gold. They kill the soldiers and capture the gold only to learn the war ended a month ago. Deciding to keep the gold they flee but get chased by a group of drifters that want the gold. They get pinned down at a stage relay station and when deals between the two sides fail, the drifters decide to burn them out --- Highly regarded western which ranks alongside the Scott-Boetticher vehicles of a few years later --- Harry Joe Brown and Randy Scott produced some of the best westerns Hollywood ever made, this is one of them ... one of only two films directed by the brilliant writer-producer Roy Huggins.

Under Roy Huggins (Director / Screenwriter), Harry Joe Brown (Producer), Charles Lawton (Cinematographer), Mischa Bakaleinikoff (Musical Direction/Supervision), Gene Havlick (Editor), Frank A. Tuttle (Set Designer) - - - - the cast includes Randolph Scott (Matt Stewart), Donna Reed (Molly Hull), Claude Jarman, Jr. (Jamie Groves), Frank Faylen (Cass Browne), Glenn Langan (Capt. Peterson), Richard Denning (Lee Kemper), Lee Marvin (Rolph Bainter), Clem Bevans (Plunkett), Jeanette Nolan (Mrs. Harris),Ray Teal (Quincey),Monte Blue (Maxwell), John Call (Egan Walsh), Reed Howes (Hank Fletcher), Guinn "Big Boy" Williams (Smitty), Frank Yaconelli, Grant Withers, Edward Earle, Post Park, Frank S. Hagney - - - - Randy Scott had a quiet gentleman nature about him which is not seen in the films of today ... Randy took his job and his responsibility to his audience very seriously ,,, would not settle for anything less than his best ... same was true in his personal life.

SPECIAL FEATURES BIOS:

1. Randolph Scott (aka: George Randolph Scott)

Date of birth: 23 January 1898 - Orange County, Virginia

Date of death: 2 March 1987 - Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, California

Special footnote, George Randolph Scott better known as Randolph Scott, was an American film actor whose career spanned the sound era from the late 1920s to the early 1960s ... his popularity grew in the 1940s and 1950s, appearing in such films as "Gung Ho"! (1943) and "Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm" (1938); but he was especially famous for his numerous Westerns including "Virginia City" (1940) with Errol Flynn and Humphrey Bogart, "Western Union" (1941) with Robert Young and "Ride the High Country" (1962) with Joel McCrea (a coin was flipped to see whether Scott or McCrea would receive top billing, and Scott won despite having a slightly smaller role) ... his long fistfight with John Wayne in "The Spoilers" (1942) was frequently cited by critics and the press as the most thrilling ever filmed; they were fighting over Marlene Dietrich ... another smash hit film together that same year called "Pittsburgh" (1942) once again with Dietrich, Scott and Wayne --- Daniel Webster defines "Legend", as being a notable person, or the stories told about that person exploits --- well by the time Randolph Scott made his best films he had long established himself as a legend in the film industry --- they say practice makes perfect, if that is true by 1958 at 60 years of age he was the master with these oaters from the 50s ... "The Cariboo Trail" (1950), "The Nevadan" (1950), "Colt .45" (1950), "Santa Fe" (1951), "Sugarfoot" (1951), "Fort Worth" (1951), "Man in the Saddle" (1951), "Carson City" (1952), "The Man Behind the Gun" (1952), "Hangman's Knot" (1952), "Thunder over the Plains" (1953), "The Stranger Wore a Gun" (1953), "Ten Wanted Men" (1954), "Riding Shotgun" (1954), "The Bounty Hunter" (1954), "Rage at Dawn" (1955), "Tall Man Riding" (1955), "A Lawless Street" (1955), "Seven Men from Now" (1956), "Seventh Cavalry" (1956), "Decision at Sundown: (1957), "Shoot-Out at Medicine Bend" (1957), "The Tall T" (1957), "Buchanan Rides Alone" (1958), "Ride Lonesome" (1959), "Westbound" (1959), "Comanche Station" (1960) --- Scott's age seemed to matter little, they only came to see another Randolph Scott film and always got their money's worth --- Scott's films were good and getting better becoming classics --- so if you ever wonder "What Ever Happened To Randolph Scott", just rent or purchase one of his films and you'll see he's never left us.

2. Donna Reed (aka: Donna Belle Mullenger)

Date of Birth: 27 January 1921 - Denison, Iowa

Date of Death: 14 January 1986 - Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, California

3. Claude Jarman Jr.

Date of Birth: 27 September 1934 - Nashville, Tennessee

Date of death: Still Living

4. Frank Faylen

Date of Birth: 8 December 1905 - St. Louis, Missouri

Date of Death: 2 August 1985 - Burbank, California

5. Lee Marvin

Date of Birth: 19 February 1924 - New York, New York

Date of Death: 29 August 1987 - Tucson, Arizona

6. Jeanette Nolan

Date of Birth: 30 December 1911 - Los Angeles, California

Date of Death: 5 June 1998 - Los Angeles, California

7. Roy Huggins (Director/Writer)

Date of Birth: 18 July 1914 - Litelle, Washington

Date of Death: 3 April 2002 - Santa Monica, California

Hats off and thanks to Les Adams (collector/guideslines for character identification), Chuck Anderson (Webmaster: The Old Corral/B-Westerns.Com), Boyd Magers (Western Clippings), Bobby J. Copeland (author of "Trail Talk"), Rhonda Lemons (Empire Publishing Inc), Bob Nareau (author of "The Real Bob Steele") and Trevor Scott (Down Under Com) as they have rekindled my interest once again for Film Noir, B-Westerns and Serials --- looking forward to more high quality releases from the vintage serial era of the '20s, '30s & '40s and B-Westerns ... order your copy now from Amazon where there are plenty of copies available on VHS, stay tuned once again for top notch action mixed with deadly adventure --- if you enjoyed this title, why not check out VCI Entertainment where they are experts in releasing B-Westerns and Serials --- all my heroes have been cowboys!

Total Time: 81 min on DVD ~ Sony Home Video ~ (6/15/2004)