An intensely moving, intricately layered, and timeless classic
Classic movies are unforgettable, and “Shane” is a stellar example. Though it follows the Western formula of a reluctant outsider coming to fight evil and rescue the morally good and has the obligatory barroom brawls and climatic shootout, its tale is told with such surprising heart, moral complexity, breathtaking scenery, and across-the-board panache, that it's indelibly moving and entertaining with an ending that is one of the most famous in all of cinema. Universally renowned as one of the best Westerns ever made, “Shane” was nominated for six Academy Awards (including Best Picture), winning one. The American Film Institute (AFI) named it the 3rd Greatest Western of All-Time, the 45th Greatest Film, and the 53rd Most Inspiring, for starters. This is a Western everyone is bound to love, even those who don’t like Westerns.
"Shane" takes place in 1889, a period in American history when land was granted to eligible citizens to own and operate their own farms under the new Homestead Acts. The film centers around one of those homesteaders, the fictional “Starrett” family – “Joe”, his wife “Marian”, and their young son “Joey” – who live in a glorious valley in the Wyoming Territory set against the majestic Grand Teton mountain range. As the opening credits roll, we see a stranger on a horse enter the valley from above. We then meet “Joey” as he points a rifle at a deer and stops as he notices the stranger approaching in the distance.
The stranger arrives and, aware that “Joey” has been watching him, tells the boy, “You know, I like a man who watches things go on around. It means he'll make his mark someday”. "Joey" becomes infatuated with the stranger, who we learn is “Shane”, a former gunfighter who’s just passing through, heading north to “one place or another. Some place I’ve never been”. There’s an instant bond between the two, and it’s not long before “Joey” idolizes “Shane”, looking to him as a symbol of integrity and strength. Their relationship lies at the heart of this film, and everything’s told through the eyes of little “Joey”, making it a mythic fairytale of sorts. It’s also “Joey’s” coming of age as he observes those around him to discern ethics, values, and how to best equip himself for life on the frontier. It's an extraordinary film.
The action revolves around “Shane” helping protect the “Starrett’s” and their farm from ruthless cattle baron “Rufus Ryker” and his band of men. “Ryker” wants all homesteaders off the land so his cattle can run free, and has been terrorizing the half dozen or so homesteaders in the valley to get them to pack up and go. “Ryker’s” tactics become increasingly violent, and he eventually hires a gleefully evil gunslinger named “Jack Wilson” to help accomplish his goal.
But the film is more than just a good guy versus bad guy yarn. In the bigger picture, “Shane” is about a changing world and changing times, and how within that context no one is inherently right or wrong. Good people are tempted to do bad things if necessary, and the villainous “Rufus” even makes a compelling case as to why he wants the homesteaders off the land he considers his own. As “Joey” tries to learn right from wrong, we’re shown multiple sides of many situations, which forces us, the filmgoer, to think about our own morals.
A prime example is a very intriguing exchange about guns between “Marian” and “Shane” which starts when she tells him "Guns aren't going to be my boy's life”, to which he responds: “A gun is a tool ‘Marian’. No better or worse than any other tool – an ax, shovel, or anything. A gun is as good or as bad as the man using it”. That prompts “Marian” to say, “We’d all be much better off if there wasn’t a single gun in the valley, including yours”. “Shane” is filled with intriguing themes and thoughts such as this, and an emotional complexity not often found in Westerns.
This is no mere Western because of its producer and director, George Stevens. After directing many hits such as "Swing Time”, "Gunga Din", and "Woman of the Year”, Stevens served in the military during World War II as head of a film unit making war documentaries. The footage he captured included the bloody D-Day invasion on Normandy beach and the liberation of the Dachau concentration camp. The violence and horrors he witnessed burned deep. After returning to Hollywood, he never again made solely entertaining movies, but films with meaning and depth, of which “Shane” is among the best.
The 1940s and 1950s were the Golden Age of the Western, and when Stevens returned home after the war, he saw guns being trivialized in movies and TV, and children donning cowboy hats and playing shootout, none of which sat well with him after seeing actual violence. So he decided to make a war film in the form of a Western, and "Shane" was it. As he recounted in the 1984 documentary "George Stevens: A Filmmaker’s Journey": "Film and TV was full of guys with guns. Everybody was bang, bang, banging with cap pistols, and I knew this story called 'Shane'. It was a real putdown on the heroic aspect of the six-shooter and the Western legend, and that really started the motivation. I thought it was a good time to do that kind of a thing about this weapon, you know, not give it a sense of grace, but to show it for what it was, a destructive, violent instrument".
Stevens' goal was not to trivialize the violence in “Shane”. It might be hard to fathom by today’s standards, but "Shane's" violence (which looks tame today) was considered shockingly realistic in its day. You’ll notice gunshots in particular have quite an impact. I’ll talk a bit more about that in the TO READ AFTER VIEWING section, for after you watch the film.
A director known to go to painstaking lengths to make films exactly how he wanted, Stevens scouted locations for about a year until he found one near Jackson Hole, Wyoming, where much of the film was shot. He "interviewed 1,500 horses" (according to his secretary) until he found the right one for “Shane” to ride. To realistically show the unglamorous, hard life of the homesteaders, he had sets built on location according to the specifications of the period. Props were also period precise, as well as costumes which had dirt, rips, and tears on them to look worn and lived in. Even local healthy cattle were swapped with skinnier cows to emphasize the difficult life. To ensure accuracy, Old West expert and historian Joe De Yong was hired as the film's technical advisor.
"Shane" was based on a 1949 novel with the same name by Jack Schaefer, and Stevens’ first task was to get a great script, so he hired Pulitzer Prize-winning author A. B. Guthrie to adapt it into a screenplay. Guthrie won a 1950 Pulitzer for his 1950 novel “The Way West”, and had just written his first screenplay for the 1952 Western, “The Big Sky”. “Shane” came next, and its gripping complexity, multidimensional characters, and genuine flow of dialogue and story earned him a Best Screenplay Oscar nomination (his only). He wrote only one more screenplay, 1955’s “The Kentuckian”, though a couple of other Westerns were based on his novels (including 1967’s “The Way West”).
A master of cinema, Stevens’ direction in “Shane” is extraordinary. The film bursts with stunningly framed shots with gorgeous depth and action on many levels. The opening sequence is filled with such shots, as when “Shane” arrives in the background behind a deer in a pond, or a subsequent shot with "Joe" chopping a tree stump in the foreground, "Joey" sitting on a fence in the middle, and “Shane" approaching in the distance. It's a breathtakingly graceful way to begin a film.
To help us feel the expansiveness of the surrounding land, there’s a very sparse use of close-ups, and Stevens uses many far shots, sometimes so far we don’t see the actors, such as when "Shipstead" returns from town on his horse yelling news. “Shipstead" remains way in the distance but we know exactly who he is. Presenting the scene in that manner underlines the sweeping scale of the community, how long it takes to reach one another, and his yells make the scene extra heartbreaking.
While Stevens was a master at subtlety, he could also be bold and direct, such as the riveting sequence when “Shane” and “Joe” chop and remove a tree stump. Through editing, music, and a meticulous choice of shots, he turns a simple action into a bonding event, brilliantly showing us, without words, that together these two men can conquer anything. And one of the most gripping scenes in the film is the barroom fight between “Shane” and "Chris Calloway”, one of “Ryker’s” men. It has the natural ebb and flow of a real fight, with an unusual authenticity that pulls one in emotionally.
Stevens’ use of sound is also exceptional, often letting us hear voices of characters just offscreen, such as when he lingers on an empty room in the “Starrett’s” house as they all go to bed and we hear “Joey” say goodnight to everyone (the classic 1970s TV show “The Waltons”, which ended similarly, must have gotten their famous “Goodnight John Boy” idea from this film). If you pay attention to the direction, you’ll realize what an illustrious director Stevens was. Truly one of the greats.
Stevens deservingly earned two Academy Award nominations for “Shane”, one for Best Director and a second for Best Picture (as the film’s producer). He was also awarded the Academy’s Irving J. Thalberg Memorial Award for his high quality of production, in particular for “Shane” and 1951’s “A Place in the Sun”. His next film was 1956’s “Giant”, and many refer to these three films as his “American Trilogy”. His Oscar nominations for “Shane” were two of nine in his career, and you can read more about the legendary George Stevens in my previous posts on the other two from his trilogy, which both earned him Best Director Oscars, "Giant" and "A Place in the Sun". Just click on each film title to open that post.
“Shane” was Stevens’ first color film, and he hired cinematographer Loyal Griggs to capture it in heavenly Technicolor. It’s impossible not to be awestruck by the film's visual beauty – be it the grandeur of colorful mother nature, the thrilling composition of characters in a frame, or the exciting way the camera tracks "Joey" and his dog running after "Shane" to say he's sorry. The film is visually electrifying, and Grigg’s won a Best Cinematography Academy Award for it, the film’s only Oscar win.
Raised in Los Angeles, Michigan-born Loyal Griggs began working at Paramount Pictures after graduating high school. He worked on process shots in the special effects department, including the famous earthquake sequence in 1936’s “San Francisco”, and the 1938 adventure film "Spawn of the North", which earned him the Academy’s Honorary Award for special effects (shared with the rest of the production team). He also worked with Stevens as camera process photographer on “A Place in the Sun”. In 1951, Griggs became a cinematographer, and as such, shot around 40 feature films, mostly while under contract to Paramount. He earned three additional Best Cinematographer Oscar nominations for "The Ten Commandments", "The Greatest Story Ever Told", and "In Harm's Way", and his other films include "White Christmas", "We're No Angels", "The Tin Star”, and his final, 1971's "Bunny O'Hare" starring Bette Davis and Ernest Borgnine. He continued to do visual effects and work as a second unit photographer throughout his career on films that include “Vertigo”, “Airport”, “Paint Your Wagon”, and “To Each His Own”. He was married once. Loyal Griggs died in 1978 at the age of 71.
Starring as a gunfighter of few words is Alan Ladd in his signature role as "Shane". Wonderfully underplayed, Ladd paints “Shane” as a man who doesn’t easily show his emotions, yet under his stoic exterior, deeply feels. He’s got a quiet toughness (such as when telling “Joe” to put down his gun, or when first encountering the “Rufus” gang at the bar), a yearning (as seen by the faint glimmer in his eyes when he looks at “Marian”), and a deep capacity for love (coloring how he interacts with “Joey”). “Shane’s” a drifter who stops wandering to help a family in trouble, and Ladd brings a very believable nobility to the role. It’s no wonder AFI voted the character of “Shane” the 16th Greatest Hero in movies.
A turbulent childhood might account for the vulnerability always lurking under Arkansas-born Alan Ladd's stolidity. When he was four, his father died of a heart attack, and not long after, while playing with matches, Ladd accidentally burned down the apartment where he and his mother lived. Homeless and hungry, his mother soon remarried, and they ended up in a migrant camp in Pasadena, California before eventually landing in Hollywood (Ladd compared his childhood to “The Grapes of Wrath”). He began working at the age of eight, picking fruit, sweeping floors, and delivering newspapers. Poverty made him frail and the smallest child in his grade, which he was teased about. He took up sports in high school, including track, was a swimming and diving champion, and trained for the Olympics until a diving injury stopped him. In high school, he also participated in theater (where he met his first wife, who he married in 1936). Spotted in a school play, Ladd landed a contract with Universal Pictures and began appearing in uncredited bit parts starting with the 1932 film "Tom Brown of Culver".
Repeatedly told he'd never be a star because he was too blonde and too short (his height was reported as anywhere from 5'4" to 5'6"), Universal eventually dropped Ladd. He took odd jobs including opening a short-lived hamburger shop, and worked as a grip at Warner Brothers Studios. In 1937, his now widowed mother committed suicide in front of him (swallowing ant poison). Ladd studied acting, performed on stage, and continued to get bit parts in movies at various studios but found more fruitful work on radio. Agent Sue Carol heard him on the radio, met him, and signed him for representation. He began getting better film roles in films like 1939's "Rulers of the Sea", "Hitler – Beast of Berlin", and "The Black Cat”, and also appeared (uncredited) as a pipe-smoking reporter at the end of "Citizen Kane”. 1942 was a big year for Ladd. He divorced his first wife and marred his agent Carol, had a breakthrough in a featured role in 1942's "Joan of Paris”, and landed a contract with Paramount while auditioning for a 1942 crime drama. The crime drama was "This Gun for Hire" which instantly made him a star, and his good looks and cool demeanor as a killer with a conscience is said to have forever changed how gangsters were portrayed in movies. Veronica Lake also appeared in that film, and the two shared an icy, electric onscreen chemistry and became a popular duo who graced the screen together in three more films, "The Glass Key", "The Blue Dahlia", and “Saigon”. Ladd's films made money, his face sold magazines, and he became one of the most popular stars of the late 1940s and early 1950s, especially known for noirs and Westerns. He was so popular that DC comics published a nine-issue series of comic books featuring him in different adventures.
“Shane” was a major hit that garnered Ladd glowing reviews (the New York Times said he gave “one of the best performances ever given in a Western movie”), a World Film Favorite Golden Globe Award, being crowned Photoplay magazine's Most Popular Male Star, and having his hand and footprints in cement at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre. He appeared in about 100 films, others include "Branded", "Appointment with Danger", "The Big Land”, "Whispering Smith", "The Great Gatsby", "Boy on a Dolphin”, and his final, 1964's "The Carpetbaggers", released posthumously. He remained married to Carol until his death, and his children include film executive and one time 20th Century Fox president Alan Ladd Jr., and actor, film executive, and producer David Ladd (once married to Cheryl Ladd of "Charlie's Angels" fame). His malnourished childhood caused Ladd to suffer various illnesses, injuries, and insomnia throughout his life, and he'd combine sedatives with alcohol to sleep and numb pain. In 1962, he accidentally shot himself in the chest, and nearly died, and in 1964, while recuperating from knee injuries, Alan Ladd accidentally took a lethal combination of sedatives and alcohol and died at the age of 50.
Jean Arthur stars as “Marian Starrett”, mother and wife of the family. We hear “Marian” singing before we see her, and she’s slowly revealed behind a window before we get a good look at her at the dinner table – an inventive way to introduce a woman who is battling hidden emotions. “Marian’s” intrigued looks at “Shane” tell us she fancies him, echoed when “Joe” asks her if everything’s alright as she serves “Shane” pie. Her feelings are confirmed in the subtle scene when she tells her son “Don’t get to liking ‘Shane’ too much… He’ll be moving on one day ‘Joey’. You’ll be upset if you get to liking him too much” – which we know she's really telling herself. Later, after she tends to “Shane’s” bruises and looks out the window for him after he leaves, she tells her husband, “Hold me. Don’t say anything. Just hold me tight”, and Arthur beautifully uses her distinct voice to let us feel “Marian’s” pain. Another of Arthur’s strengths is her tremendous sincerity, which elevates her motherly love and concern for “Joey”, and breaks our hearts in the scene when “Joe” tells her he’s going to meet “Ryker”. Her infectious vulnerability and fertile humanity paint a delicately rich and understated portrait of a woman longing for something more but who won’t give up what she has. It’s an artfully crafted portrayal.
A top comedienne, gifted actress, and one of the major stars of the 1930s and early 1940s, Jean Arthur didn’t like fame, was reclusive and private, and known to be very anxious and insecure (director Frank Capra said she’d vomit in her dressing room between takes on his films). So when her contract ended with Columbia Pictures in 1944, even though she was their top star, Arthur walked away from Hollywood. Billy Wilder convinced her to appear in his 1948 film “A Foreign Affair”, which was to be her last screen appearance until Stevens asked her to do “Shane”. Arthur previously worked with Stevens in 1953's "Talk of the Town" and 1943's "The More the Merrier” (which earned her a Best Actress Academy Award nomination). They were both perfectionists, shared mutual admiration for each other, and enjoyed working together, so she agreed, and “Shane” became her final film. She was 52 at the time, it was a return to the screen after five years, her first and only color film, and a departure for a brilliant actress who mostly appeared in comedies and dramatic comedies. She starred in many great films and classics in a thirty-year film career, and you can read more about the life and career of the immensely likable and hugely talented Jean Arthur in my previous post on “You Can’t Take It with You”. Be sure to check it out.
Van Heflin stars as “Joe Starrett”, resolute on building a safe and happy life for his wife and son. He first appears as “Joey” yells “Someone’s coming pa”, referring to the approaching stranger. “Joe” pauses from chopping a tree stump, takes a deep breath, looks in the distance and answers, “Well, let him come”, and Heflin delivers that simple line with such a superb combination of weariness, prudence, warmth, and confidence, it instantly tells us everything we need to know about this man. Heflin's is another of the film’s magnificently rendered performances.
Heflin adds personality along with a wide range of emotions to "Joe", such as tremendous love and affection for his wife and son, concern at their predicament, and outright anger as when he tells “Rufus” “now you get off my claim!”. His mix of straightforwardness and restrained emotion when telling “Marian” he might not return from his encounter with “Rufus” and alluding to her infatuation with “Shane” is outstanding and incredibly touching. Heflin’s so natural and genuine it feels like you could sit down and talk to this guy. A fantastic performance by an exceedingly talented actor, it earned him a British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) Best Foreign Actor nomination.
Oklahoma-born Van Heflin moved with his family to Long Beach, California, where he went to high school before returning to his birth state where he attended the University of Oklahoma. He interrupted his studies to sail the seas as a third mate merchant seaman, and on a trip to New York City met theater director Richard Boleslawski who persuaded him to give up life at sea for acting. The director cast Heflin in his 1928 Broadway play "Mr. Moneypenny”, after which Heflin returned to the University of Oklahoma to study drama. He then briefly worked onstage in Philadelphia before getting a master's degree in acting at Yale University. Heflin returned to Broadway in 1934 for "The Bride of Torozko” (starring Arthur), and several shows later created a buzz in 1936's "End of Summer”. Katharine Hepburn saw him in that show, and taken by his talent, brought Heflin to Hollywood to appear in her 1936 film "A Woman Rebels” (his film debut), and helped land him a contract at RKO Pictures. He was cast in more films, but his big break came when Hepburn cast him in her 1939 hit play "The Philadelphia Story" as "Macaulay Connor" (the role played by James Stewart in the film version). Heflin also scored big in his role in the 1940 hit film "Santa Fe Trail", which led to a contract at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM).
Heflin was famously quoted as saying "Louis B. Mayer [head of MGM] once looked at me and said, 'You will never get the girl at the end'. So I worked on my acting". He was cast in supporting roles at MGM starting with 1941's "The Feminine Touch", and for his third film, the crime drama "Johnny Eager", won a Best Supporting Actor Academy Award (and is cited as being the first actor to win an Oscar for a role in a gangster film). Heflin continued playing supporting roles, sometimes leads, and took two years off to serve during World War II as a combat cameraman with the First Motion Picture Unit. A solid, versatile, and extremely talented character actor, Heflin worked steadily until his death, in films, radio, a handful of TV shows, and two more Broadway shows (including the first Broadway production of Arthur Miller's "A View from the Bridge” in 1955). His other films include "3:10 to Yuma", "Possessed", "The Strange Love of Martha Ivers", "Act of Violence", "The Three Musketeers", "The Prowler", "Till the Clouds Roll By", "The Greatest Story Ever Told", "Patterns", and his final film, 1970's "Airport". He was married and divorced twice. While swimming in his pool, he suffered a heart attack and was discovered hours later unconscious, clinging on the pool's ladder. He never regained consciousness and died seventeen days later. Van Heflin died in 1971 at the age of 62.
Brandon de Wilde plays “Joey Starrett”, the boy who idolizes “Shane” and is trying to make sense of life. “Joey's” innocence, fascination with people, and zest for life make this film uniquely special. He's an observer, and Stevens frequently cuts to shots of him watching and listening to everything and everyone around from behind walls, under tables, and in corners. The spontaneity, truthfulness, and joy of de Wilde’s complex performance completely captures the spirit, energy, and curiosity of early youth. As “Joey” soaks in the world, watches “Shane” shoot his six shooter, fight the bad guys, or hears “Shipstead” bring news about “Torrey”, de Wilde is utterly stirring. And his final heart-wrenching scene has become one of the most iconic in cinema (which I’ll touch upon in the TO READ AFTER VIEWING section). De Wilde was not yet nine years old when filming began, and his performance earned him a Best Supporting Actor Academy Award nomination, making him the youngest actor to receive an Oscar nomination at the time (he was 11 when nominated).
Brooklyn-born Brandon de Wilde stormed into show biz at 7½ years old, when he amazed audiences in the Broadway play "Member of the Wedding". His sweet, soft, sensitive quality and talent led Stevens to hire him for "Shane", which was de Wilde's first film (though the film version of "Member of the Wedding", which he shot next, was released first). De Wilde was reported to be a bit of a terror on the set of "Shane", jumping up and down in the mud, sticking out his tongue, and being mischievous, evidently encouraged by Arthur, who adored him. “Shane” launched a very successful screen career for de Wilde, spent mostly on television, with a few more Broadway appearances and fourteen films before his life was tragically cut short. You can read more about the life and career of Brandon de Wilde in my post on another film I love, “Hud".
Jack Palance (billed as Walter Jack Palance) is sensational as “Jack Wilson”, the hired gun. As “Wilson” slowly rides his horse towards the saloon, peers over the swinging doors, moseys in and leans on a pole, we can already feel his piercing villainy. His calculating walk and relaxed, confident stance makes him such a fearsome presence that even dogs move aside when he enters a room or gets up from a chair. And the way he nonchalantly and gleefully puts on gloves before he’s about to kill someone is downright chilling, all making him one of the scariest and best psychotic characters in movies. “Shane” was Palance’s fourth film and earned him a Best Supporting Actor Academy Award nomination. It also branded him a top movie villain.
Born in Pennsylvania to Ukrainian immigrants, as a young boy Jack Palance worked as a coal miner alongside his father. He left the mines to become a professional boxer before serving as a pilot in the Air Force during World War II. Following a 1943 plane crash, Palance was discharged and underwent reconstructive surgery on his head. He studied drama at Stanford University but left for the theater before graduating. He studied Method acting and made his Broadway debut in 1947's "The Big Two", followed by understudying and then replacing Marlon Brando in the original Broadway production of "A Streetcar Named Desire", directed by Elia Kazan. More Broadway shows followed, including 1951's "Darkness at Noon", which won him a Theatre World Award. He appeared on two TV shows before Kazan cast him in his film debut, 1950's "Panic in the Streets”. His second film was opposite Joan Crawford, as an evil brute in "Sudden Fear", which earned him a Best Supporting Actor Academy Award nomination. "Shane" followed, along with a second Oscar nomination. He was now a prominent actor.
Palance took on leading roles, as in "Man in the Attic" and "I Died a Thousand Times", as well as major supporting parts in films like "Second Chance" and "Sign of the Pagan". He mostly played the heavy, but occasionally branched out to portray good guys as in "The Big Knife" and "The Man Inside". In the late 1950s and early 1960s, he worked primarily in Europe, most notably in Jean-Luc Godard's "Le Mépris" ("Contempt") opposite Brigitte Bardot, and the 1961 religious epic "Barabbas". Palance also worked on television, starring in the 1960s series "The Greatest Show on Earth", and won an Emmy Award for a 1957 Playhouse 90 episode of "Requiem for a Heavyweight". He appeared in over 120 films and TV shows, and his other films include "Attack!", "The Professionals", 1989's "Batman", "The Lonely Man", "The Mercenary", "Bagdad Cafe", and 1991's "City Slickers”, which won him a Best Supporting Actor Academy Award, Golden Globe, and other awards (he famously did one-handed push-ups on the Oscar telecast when receiving his statue). He was married twice. Jack Palance died in 2006 at the age of 87.
Just a quick mention of two actors I’ve previously written about who appear in “Shane”, the first of which is Elisha Cook Jr. as the rambunctious “Frank ‘Stonewall’ Torrey”. Cook Jr. was a recognized and popular character actor mostly known for playing neurotic and slimy types, and in “Shane” he gets a chance to show off his versatility as a rowdy, no-nonsense good guy. He appeared in well over 200 films and TV shows, and you can read more about the life and career of Elisha Cook Jr. in my post on his other most famous classic, “The Maltese Falcon”.
Then there's Ellen Corby who plays “Stonewall’s” wife “Liz Torrey”. Corby was another prolific actor who appeared in well over 250 films and TV shows, often in nondescript parts (like "Liz" in "Shane"). She earned a Best Supporting Actress nomination for 1948's "I Remember Mama", and appeared in many classic films. Fame came when she played "Grandma Esther Walton" in the classic 1970's TV show "The Waltons". You can read more about the life and career of Ellen Corby in my post on another of her classic films, Alfred Hitchcock's "Vertigo".
This week’s masterpiece is a real feast for the eyes, ears, mind, and soul. A Western brimming with surprising heart, and visual splendor. Enjoy “Shane”!
This blog is a weekly series (currently biweekly) on all types of classic films from the silent era through the 1970s. It is designed to entertain and inform through watching a recommended classic film a week. The intent is that a love and deepened knowledge of cinema will evolve, along with a familiarity of important stars, directors, writers, the studio system, and more. I highly recommend visiting (or revisiting) the HOME page, which explains it all and provides a place where you can subscribe and get email notifications of every new post. Visit THE MOVIES page to see a list of all films currently on this site. Please leave comments, share this blog with family, friends, and on social media, and subscribe so you don’t miss a post. Thanks so much for reading!
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TO READ AFTER VIEWING (contains spoilers):
Stevens set out to paint a realistic picture of the effects of violence, spurred by his aversion to it after seeing it during WWII. When a character gets shot in "Shane", they fall backwards from the impact of the bullet (accomplished by pulling an actor backwards by a rope as they were shot). The intense sound of the gunshots also emphasizes the violence (accomplished by shooting cannons into trashcans). As Stevens said in Don Graham's book “Giant”, “In ‘Shane’, a gun shot, for our purposes, is a holocaust. And when a living being is shot, a life is over”.
Containing the first realistically violent gunshot in movies, “Shane” is considered a turning point in cinema. As director Sam Peckinpah said in Jay Hyams' book "The Life and Times of the Western Movie", "When Jack Palance shot Elisha Cook Jr. in 'Shane', things started to change".The film was also a major reference and influence for “Bonnie and Clyde”, which took another leap in screen violence (be sure to check out my post on that classic).
"Shane's" final scene is so impactful it has become iconic, and AFI named "Joey's" heart wrenching final cry, "'Shane', 'Shane'. Come back!" as the 47th Greatest Movie Quote of All-Time.