Robert Mitchum is Jeb Rand, a man who can’t seem to shake his past. Everyone else in his family was murdered when he was a youngster.
He was rescued by Ma Callum (Judith Anderson), who raised her as her own son. She has two other children — Adam (John Rodney), who’s jealous of Jeb, especially when he comes back from the Spanish-American war a hero; and Thorley (Teresa Wright), who falls for Jeb and plans to marry him, until he’s forced to kill her brother in self-defense.
Then she devises a devious plot … she’ll marry Jeb, just for the chance to get her revenge.
All the while, Grant Callum seems to be doing his damnedest to get Jeb killed too. Jeb’s the last of the Rand family, and Grant wants every Rand dead.
Perhaps that’s why Jeb has this nagging fleeing that he’s being chase, hunted down, pursued.
Review:
Very well done film, told mostly flashback style. And we don’t find out why there’s such a grudge between the Rand and Callum family until the last few minutes of the movie.
Mitchum turns in one of his better Western performances, but the film is filled with neat little touches that help it stand out. The coin that keeps getting flipped to determine Jeb’s fate. Jeb’s gift to his wife on their wedding night.
Judith Anderson also delivers a fine performance in a rare prominent role for a middle-aged woman. She convinces Grant to spare the innocent young boy she’s adopted; he agrees, but only until Jeb grows up. Long ago, he says, for Ma Callum to regret saving him in the first place.
Best known for her stage work on Broadway, Anderson came out of a 14-year retirement to play the high priestess in “Star Trek III: The Search for Spock” at age 87 in 1984. She also had a prominent part in “The Furies,” a 1950 Western starring Barbara Stanwyck.
Directed by:
Raoul Walsh
Cast:
Robert Mitchum … Jeb Rand
Teresa Wright … Thorley Callum
Judith Anderson … Ma Callum
Dean Jagger … Grant Callum
Alan Hale … Jake Dingle
John Rodney … Adam Callum
Harry Carey Jr. … Prentice McComber
Clifton Young … The sergeant
Ernest Stevens … Jed, age 11
Charles Bates … Adam, age 11
Peggy Miller … Thor, age 10
Runtime: 95 min.
Memorable lines:
Ma Callum: “Being a lawyer hasn’t done your shooting any good, Grant.”
Grant Callum to Adam Callum, upon Jeb’s return home: “Listen to that. The ladies deprecate killing, but my how they admire a war hero. Jeb, you know, comes by his instincts naturally. He inherited them.”
Jeb Rand to Thor Callum: “Thor, I never belonged here. I don’t know why. I always have a feeling something’s after me. It’s a bad feeling I can’t explain. Lots of times I’m happy, but it’s still there.”
Jeb Rand to Thor: “I was sure of my love for you. That was the only hope and the only answer. If love could come out of all this, we might still have some chance. We might live. Right then I knew I had to have you. I’d have to climb across two graves to get to you, but nothing in the world could hold me back.”
Thor, showing her mother an engagement ring: “Jeb gave me this tonight. I’m going to marry him, mother.”
Ma Callum: “What’s in this that I don’t understand? Do you love him then?”
Thor: “I have only one thought, every minute of my life — how much I hate him.”
Ma Callum: “But you wear his ring.”
Thor: “If I were a man, I would have killed him long ago. After Adam’s death. Then he killed Prentiss and came courting me. All of a sudden, killing wasn’t enough. I had to have more. Much more to use up all the hate I have in me.”
){kind=link}