The Ox-Bow Incident ***** (no 49)

 

by Allan Fish

the beginning of the 1940s countdown.  No 50 is actually To Be Or Not To Be, which I have covered already on WitD here – 

https://wondersinthedark.wordpress.com/2008/10/06/to-be-or-not-to-be/

 – so here’s no 49.

(USA 1943 75m) DVD1/2

Aka. The Strange Incident

God better have mercy on ya…

p  Lamar Trotti  d  William A.Wellman  w  Lamar Trotti  novel  Walter Van Tilburg Clark  ph  Arthur Miller  ed  Allen McNeil  m  Cyril Mockridge  art  Richard Day, James Basevi  cos  Earl Ruick

Henry Fonda (Gil Carter), Henry Morgan (Art Croft), Jane Darwell (Ma Grier), Harry Davenport (Arthur Davies), Dana Andrews (Donald Martin), Anthony Quinn (Juan Martines), Mary Beth Hughes (Rose Mapen), William Eythe (Gerald Tetley), Frank Conroy (Maj.Tetley), Matt Briggs (Judge Daniel Tyler), Paul Hurst, Francis Ford,

The Ox-Bow Incident is undoubtedly one of the most depressing films in this list, all the more so because there’s a certain inevitability about the proceedings.  Such small towns are a mainstay of westerns, but this is not primarily a western, it’s a lynch drama and, in spite of the merits of They Won’t Forget and Fury, it is categorically the best ever made, as well as the shortest.  Not a frame is wasted and each frame is full of a harsh beauty.

            Two men return to Ox-Bow, one of whom is returning to see his girl, only to find out that she has left for San Francisco earlier that year.  Disconsolate, he is awoken out of it by the shocking news of a murder which sends the town Sheriff out of town to search for the culprits.  However, the local townsfolk believe that three wandering cowhands, who have unfortunately no proof of sale for their steers, have stolen the steers and committed the murder, all because one of them has found the deceased’s gun. 

            This is a message film for sure, and a melancholy one, a feeling perfectly captured by the recurrent use of the immortal tune ‘Red River Valley’ played on the harmonica.  As Fonda rides into town he notes that it’s “deader than a Paiute’s grave…”  The bartender who serves him confirms that there are only five things to do, “eat, drink, sleep, play poker or fight.”  (Remember this was 1943, so no talk of the local whorehouse.)  Fonda has had enough, but becomes embroiled in the ensuing anarchy of the potential lynching.  He knows that the deputy in charge is incompetent and a violent bully and that the Major is the antithesis of all he believes in, but he is a reluctant abstainer.  It is rather Harry Davenport’s Mr Davies who is the voice of conscience, ironically the cinematic ancestor of Henry Fonda’s juror in Twelve Angry Men.  However there are several crucial differences here, most importantly that here the men are not guilty, whereas in Lumet’s film the guilt is somewhat irrelevant, it’s the fact that there was seen to be reasonable doubt.  Gang rule once more holds sway and the liberal are brushed aside by the scare-mongers.  Fonda and his pal Henry Morgan realise that innocent men are about to die, but don’t do anything.  As Morgan says “all the argument in the world can’t stand up against branded cattle, no bill of sale and a dead man’s gun.”  Suspicion itself is seen as a good enough reason for action, actual guilt can be taken as inevitable.  As the hanged innocent’s letter states, “law is the conscience of humanity” and he’s right.  “Man can’t naturally take the law into his own hands and hang people without actually hurting everybody in the world ’cause then he’s not just breaking one law but all laws.”  At the end one has no sympathy for the mob and we echo the Sheriff’s sentiment “God better have mercy on ya, ’cause you won’t get none from me.”  Here Davenport represents our revulsion by quite rightly exonerating no-one from their complicity, just the seven who made a stand.

            Wellman made many fine films in his time, and was most certainly a man’s man in a man’s world, a rough, tough helmsman who knew what he wanted and Incident is his greatest film.  Yet in spite of this, it’s rather the stark photography of the great Arthur Miller and the performances that one remembers, with Fonda iconic, young Dana Andrews and Anthony Quinn memorable and Frank Conroy a mass of prejudice as the bigoted bully of a father.  As he retires into his study to put a bullet in his head one feels relief, but not enough to remove the bitter taste from the mouth.  It’s superb film-making, but don’t expect an easy night’s sleep after you watch it.