Review of The Badlanders (1958) by Brody M — 04 Nov 2009

I'm still learning about a movie I was sucked into while loading the dishwasher early one morning.

To hear it was a Western remake of 'The Asphalt Jungle' does not suprise me. For a Western (and I don't cotton to Westerns in general), it kept my attention.

Alan Ladd plays Peter Van Hoek (does he have an Asthma-Hound Chihuahua?), a.k.a. 'the Dutchman', a well-educated miner framed for a crime and sent to the notorious prison at Yuma, Arizona, where he meets McBain (Ernest Borgnine), who wants to do his time and get back to life. They meet as part of a chain-gang at odds over a rather sadistic guard (know any other kind?). Once they are released McBain can't help but come to the aid of Anita (Borgnine's real-life wife Katy Jurado, best known for 'High Noon'), who is being hassled by the local rabble. Fate pulls McBain and the Dutchman back together for a measure of revenge against the local racist toughies and the robber baron who pays them (and, incidentally, sent the Dutchman up the river).

Ladd is his usual cool self, while Borgnine is refining his character of the 'heavy with a heart' (which got him an Oscar for the lead in 'Marty' three years earlier). For the big brawny type, you can see him almost melt around Jurado...and who can blame him. That's honest chemistry captured on film. A shame the marriage lasted only two years.

While it does indeed have a happier ending than 'Asphalt', there is a reason Hollywood endings aren't as memorable. Nonetheless, the lesson this film teaches seems to be 'Handshakes don't work out West. Get it in writing'.