Hangman's Knot

By now I've made my enjoyment of historical movies pretty well known, and I'm not too picky. I'll watch just about anything. So how about some more movies about the Civil War? I understand producing a movie with thousands of extras like Gettysburg or Gods and Generals can be expensive, but hey, it's not my money now, is it? Just like I wrote about the lack of Revolutionary War movies, there's a ton of stories out there. It's just a matter of fleshing them out.

Westerns have tried to incorporate the Civil War into many different types of story, but most often as a jumping off point. In John Wayne's 1968 western The Undefeated, the war between the states serves as a jumping off point for the rest of the movie. Beginning a story amid the bloodiest war the U.S. has ever seen sets the tone right away and is a formula that's been used by many similar movies, including 1952's Hangman's Knot.

Led by Major Matt Stewart (Randolph Scott), an eight-man squad from the Army of Northern Virginia is sent west to Nevada to rob and take a Union gold shipment of over a quarter of a million dollars to help aid the Confederate war effort. The ambush works as Stewart and his men get the gold, but at a heavy cost as three of the men are killed. But meeting up with their commanding officer (Glenn Langan), the survivors find out the war is over. Even though their actions were those of soldiers doing their duty, others look at them as outlaws who massacred a Union cavalry squad.

With posses closing in all around them, including one particulary nasty bunch of drifters (led by Ray Teal and Guinn 'Big Boy' Williams) not looking to bring them to justice but to get their hands on the gold, Stewart and his men take over a stagecoach carrying two passengers, Lee Kemper (Richard Denning), a contractor for the Union army and Molly Hull (Donna Reed), a nurse traveling west. They make it to a stagecoach station with the posse close behind and prepare for a siege. The setting of the end of the Civil War open up the door for any number of story possibilities and provides a strong jumping off point for the story.

The robbery of a gold shipment seems simple enough a story for a western, but very little is black and white here. 'Knot' serves up conflict between just about every character. The posse is ready to turn on each other if it helps them get the gold, and they don't care who gets in their way, innocent or enemy. Inside the stagecoach station, Stewart also has to worry about one of his men, Rolf (Lee Marvin in tough guy psycho mode), killing them all and raping Molly. With so much conflict, the actual violence is left until the end mostly as a flashstorm descends on the station in a great, moody shootout. The gunplay is ahead of its time in its presentation as squibs are used and blood is visible when a character is shot, not just a clutch at an arm or leg.

As I've called him before, Randolph Scott is John Wayne-lite in many ways. A great western star, Scott is not necessarily a hugely well-known actor mostly because he made a career out of above average B-westerns, not epic classic westerns. He has an easygoing natural delivery that makes him likable from the get-go. His squad includes Marvin before he became a huge star, Claude Jarman JR as young Jamie, an inexperienced soldier who's family was killed during Sherman's march, and Frank Faylen as Cass, the quick with a one-liner soldier who's equally good with a gun, and John Call as Egan, the quiet one who just wants to get home to his wife. Denning is good as the sniveling, conniving weakling, and Reed makes the most of the damsel in distress part.

While 'Knot' isn't a classic or even a well-known western, I really enjoyed this one. It tries things that other westerns wouldn't do for another 10 years or so. The Civil War was a tragic time in U.S. history, and the story shows that. The stagecoach station owner (Clem Bevans) and his daughter-in-law (Jeanette Nolan) have a hatred of Stewart's Confederates that isn't easily forgotten as they're held prisoner. And that's the whole movie; greed, killing, and betrayals run rampant in this little-known western. It has been released on DVD, but also keep your eye out for it on the TCM schedule.

Hangman's Knot (1952): ***/****