Spotlight

Spotlight Date: 4-September-11
Spoiler Rating: High

Yellow Sky (1948)

Like most films that take place in the Old West, Yellow Sky concerns men seeking wealth, power, dignity or love, either through or despite lawlessness, but it's not your average oater. It's striking in a stylistic sense, and raw and natural in a narrative sense. Director William A. Wellman (The Ox-Bow Incident) serves up spectacular images of the California outback, many of which appear to have been shot at daybreak when the light has a magical quality. He also serves up spectacular images of an uncharacteristically rugged Gregory Peck. This isn't merely an observation from a fan of tall, dark, and handsome; part of the movie's rawness involves the unexpected connection between a man and a woman in which the star's attractiveness is key.

Peck's character, "Stretch" Dawson, leads a band of Civil War veterans turned bank robbers. After fleeing a heist with the law at their heels, they plunge into a nasty stretch of desert where they and their horses almost perish. At the end of the parched trail lies a ghost town (a spectacular image in itself), forgotten and forlorn but not uninhabited. A sharpshooting, pants-wearing young woman (Anne Baxter) lives there with her grandpa (James Barton), and they're none too pleased to have visitors. The cleverest of Stretch's henchmen (Richard Widmark) wastes no time finding out why: the girl and old man have been amassing a tidy fortune in gold.

Adding to the striking aspect of the movie, Wellman often lets silence do the talking. The desperadoes' personalities are expressed as much by stony stares and refusals to speak as by conversation, which feels realistic for their time, place, and social standing. While wandering the desert one of them gasps, "If I don't get some water pretty soon, I'm just gonna fall down and die," to which Peck mutters "Yeah, it looks that way" while the others just walk away. Despite their shared toughness, each is sharply defined: the conniver, the loose cannon, the kid, the old timer, and the silent one with the soft heart. They gang up against Stretch after he tries to tame the hoyden with kisses and a promise to take only half her gold. The showdown that ensues is convincingly messy and results in a notable shootout. (Westerns usually use death throes under a hot sun for dramatic effect; here darkness and confusion, and Baxter's wondering who shot whom, create suspense.) This and a charming postscript make a fitting end to a nicely crafted film.

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