The Tall Men (1955)

Ben Allison (Clark Gable) and brother Clint (Cameron Mitchell) are two ex-Confederates looking for a new start in post-Civil War Montana, and they’re none too picky about how they finance that fresh start.

When they spot Nathan Stark (Robert Ryan) with a fat money belt, they think they’ve found an easy mark.

Instead, he convinces them it would be wiser to go in with him, 50-50, on a cattle drive from Texas to Mineral City. They’d make more in the long run, and it’d be honest money.

Along their way south through snowy Montana, Ben detours to save a pretty young woman named Nella Turner (Jane Russell) from an Indian attack.

Forced to spend a night in a snowbound cabin, they quickly become close. There’s just one problem: Ben dreams small; he wants a ranch by Prairie Dog Creek in Texas. Nella dreams big, and wants nothing like the failure of a ranch she grew up on.

So she winds up befriending Stark, who vows to one day control Montana from the governor’s office. And she becomes his “responsibility” when she tags along on the cattle drive back to Montana.

There will be plenty of threats along the way, from Jayhawkers to warring Sioux Indians.

And there’s inner turmoil too, because Ben’s younger brother Clint keeps rubbing Stark the wrong way, especially with his playful tricks where Nella is concerned.

But while Stark keeps urging caution in the face of danger, Ben presses on. He’s started this cattle drive and he’s going to finish it, determined to walk away with at least enough money to make his small dream come true, even if it isn’t with Nella by his side.

Review:

A delightful film. And easily the best Western featuring Gable, who was 54 at the time and closing in on the end of a long career.

Sure, the film strikes some false notes in the early going. The Allison brothers pay $16 to board their horses for one night? Would a man being held up actually enter into a business arrangement with the men holding him up? And isn’t it convenient that curvy Nella Turner is the only survivor of the Indian attack?

But then the film shifts to the relationship between Jane Russell’s Nella and Clark Gable’s Ben, and that’s where the real magic in the film lies, complete with all sorts of little touches — like them repeatedly removing one another’s boots, like the way Nella carries around the blanket they shared on their first night together, and like the way she’s always rewriting the lyrics to her song, “The Tall Men,” to fit her mood where Gable is concerned.

Cameron Mitchell has a substantial role as Ben’s younger and still quite immature brother. And there are a couple of neat twists coming at the end, even after the cattle drive ends.

Directed by:
Raoul Walsh

Cast:
Clark Gable … Ben Allison
Jane Russell … Nella Turner
Robert Ryan … Nathan Stark
Cameron Mitchell … Clint Allison
Juan Garcia … Luis
Harry Shannon … Sam
Emile Meyer … Chickasaw Charlie
Steve Carrell … Col. Norris
Argentina Brunetti … Maria (dressmaker)
Chuck Roberson … Alva Jenkin (Jayhawker)
Will Wright … Bartender

Runtime: 122 min.

Song: “The Tall Men”
by Jane Russell

Memorable lines:

Ben Allison, upon seeing a lynched man in a tree: “Looks like we’re getting close to civilization.”

Clint Allison: “I wouldn’t give half an acre of Texas for the whole Montana Territory.”

Nathan Stark: “If you open that (money) belt, you’ll find nothing but mint fresh $100 bills.”
Ben Allison: “The kind that crackle? That’s what I like.”
Stark: “Spending them won’t be easy. You’ll leave a trail so wide, the Pinkertons will be on you like buzzards on a dead mule.”

Nella, to Stark, upon theie first meeting; “You know, for a fella who doesn’t do much talking, you got real busy eyes. Not that I mind being stared at. That’s part of being a female. But I don’t like being weighed, measured and counted.”

Nella Turner, after being rescued from an Indian attack: “Ben, I’m mighty grateful for you coming back for me.”
Ben Allison: “I’m just mighty grateful.”

Nella Turner to Nathan Stark, who’s offered to buy her a new wardrobe: “I wear a size 7 1/2 boot. You can guess about the rest.”

Nella Turner: “You’re going to have to bend down with those words a little bit if you want me to understand.”
Nathan Stark: “Why don’t you try reaching up instead?”

Clint Allison, of Nathan Stark: “Just because he’s partners with us doesn’t give him the privilege of staying alive.”

Nathan Stark, as Jayhawkers bear down on the wagon train: “People build monuments to men who make good. Fools wind up in unmarked graves.”

Jane Russell as Nella Turner, wondering if the Sioux will bring a premature end to a cattle drive in The Tall Men (1955)

Clark Gable as Ben Allison, the man who realizes his dream might not be big enough for the woman he loves in The Tall Men (1955)

Robert Ryan as Nathan Stark, a man with plans to rule all of Montana and make Nella his woman in The Tall Men (1955)

Jane Russell as Nella Turner, the rescued damsel in distress who wants a tall man in The Tall Men (1955)