Bend of the River

Following in the footsteps of Winchester '73 (the first collaboration between James Stewart and director Anthony Mann), Bend of the River is another corking western that explores the darker side of the west by contrasting Stewart's apple-pie persona against the psychological turmoil of a man trying to outrun an evil past. Bend of the River works as an allegory of the west itself by posing the question: can a man change himself for the better and make a fresh start? It's a collision between modern ideals of the American dream and the pioneering spirit of a harsher time.

Glyn McLyntock (James Stewart), besides having a lot of 'y's in his name, is a man with a sordid gunslinging past who has plans to become an honest farmer. He teams up with a similar man, Emerson Cole (Arthur Kennedy), to help shepherd some settlers across the dangerous west to their new home in Columbia River country near Portland, Oregon. The growing township of Portland is a place full of optimism and friendship, filled with settlers and merchants who are making new lives for themselves on America's frontier together. McLyntock and the settlers make camp in the wilderness and wait for their supplies from the town to arrive, but with winter approaching fast and the supplies nowhere to be seen McLyntock is forced to return to Portland to investigate the hold up. The gold rush has hit Oregon in their absence, and the influx of newcomers appeals to the greedy nature of the local merchants - making the supplies a much sought-after commodity that McLyntock and the settlers have now been cheated out of.

A lot of the plot stuff is superfluous to the film's central themes... things happen but it's primarily structured to force the characters of Cole and McLyntock into a situation that will test their respective mettle against one another. Stewart is as delightful as ever, summoning the right level of contained angst to colour his flawed hero in the way that he would become famous for in subsequent westerns. Arthur Kennedy plays the easygoing flipside to Stewart's character in a symbolic black hat, demonstrating the differences between two very similar men that characterises one as an opportunistic villain and the other as reformed and repentent. The gold rush element isn't just background noise either, it's an event that turns all of Portland sour with greed - it's the factor that seperates genuinely good men from those who just happen to be good because of circumstances. The character of Hendricks (Howard Petrie) perhaps exemplifies this the most, where McLyntock is a man inspired by a new America to change for the better, Hendricks is a man who changes for the worse.

The true nature of Stewart's character is only hinted at for a large part of the film, which allows Stewart to play the character as a man on a tightrope. He fears his reputation will be discovered by the honest and decent settlers he has befriended, and the audience responds to this unsureness because they too are in the dark as to what kind of past he is trying to outrun. Bend of the River also takes a mature attitude towards man's relationship with the environment, and looks the ticket thanks to being predominantly set outside. It's rather tight and tensely plotted at just 91 minutes, and is a fine example of all the best that traditional, intelligent western films of the 1950s have to offer.

DIRECTOR: Anthony Mann
WRITER/SOURCE: Script by Borden Chase, based on a novel by William Gulick.
KEY ACTORS: James Stewart, Arthur Kennedy, Rock Hudson, Howard Petrie, Jay C. Flippen, Julia Adams, Harry Morgan, Stepin Fetchit

RELATED TEXTS:
- Based on the then-contemporary western novel Bend of the Snake.
- Anthony Mann and James Stewart worked together on four other westerns - Winchester '73, The Naked Spur, The Far Country and The Man From Laramie. They planned to collaborate on a sixth film, Night Passage, but had a falling out that led to Mann leaving the project.