Shane

[percy toboggan]

I don't expect too many to read this - an old film I bought t'other week. I'm at a loose end while Mrs.T faffs about - we're watching the Wire in a few minutes but I watched Shane last night in bed - and stayed awake. At six am this morning I listened to most of the commentary track given by the Director George Stevens' son (he's long dead himself) and the Associate Producer - in his nineties I think.

What a western! Shot in Jacksons Hole, Wyoming. Of course Alan Ladd (second choice after Montgomery Clift turned his back on the role) is not everyones cup of tea. Too clean a cowboy for many, and those bucksking fringes did look a bit daft.

He was only five foot seven too but skilful direction made up for it. Especially in the fight scenes.

This is the classic eternal triangle story though. Van Hefflin and Jean Arthur cast as the couple eeking out an existence on the prairie with a magnificent mountain backdrop. When the stranger arrives and throws the relationship just slightly off kilter in an unspoken way. Apparently the casters wanted Katherine Hepburn to play Starret's wife but she wouldn't. This was Jean Arthur's last film. Incredibly she was in her fifties at the time of shooting but looks twenty years younger.

Seems the actor who played the young boy - through whom we are drawn into the plot was killed in a car crash in Colorado in his twenties.

The costumes were accurate, sweaty and dirty. The mud clinging and the thrown up township where Ryker and his men had permanent residnece in the saloon looked real, the essence of a fledgeling pioneering community.

There may be better westerns but I could count them on one hand.
I was amazed this was shot in colour. I'd seen it often in the past - years ago but always in black and white...somehow I think it suits monochrome more.

I'm off to watch 'The Damned United' at the cinema tomorrow with my mate Stan....so I'll doubtless chuck in my two penneth at some point.