MovieChat Forums > The Outlaw (1946) Discussion > I just saw this on TCM today and...

I just saw this on TCM today and...

posted 12 years ago by LadyJaneGrey
3 replies | jump to latest

...am amazed at how schizoid it is. Boobies and lips and a cloud of hair from Jane Russell, pouts and smirks from the undeniably beautiful Jack Buetel, and Walter Huston and Thomas Mitchell have to take up the slack in a sort of secondary buddy picture. I had read of this movie often but never before today had I glimpsed the spectacle. It's a western but then there's comedy sound effects music in it. Scenes go on forever and freaking ever (the barn scene). At one point there's a static shot of a wooden wall; I am totally serious. The still bed-ridden but apparently randy Billy suggests to Rio that maybe the sheriff will come back and she shouldn't go shopping with Aunt Guadalupe. Russell leaves the frame and there is an endless, what seems like 30-second shot of the space she occupied. Unless my channel spazzed out at that moment, I just cannot understand this at all. Hughes was many things, mostly obsessed with sex and control, but a great film-maker he wasn't.

Am I anywhere near the imaginary cliff?

[–] johnmuir76 11 years ago

It's a 20 second shot (FWIW), and it's to allow the music to crescendo and fade.

I suppose today they wouldn't dare a shot like that because people don't have the attention span, and it'd be de riguer for the camera to linger on something that wasn't a significant (like a face or an object). I say - in this day and age of cameras lingering far too long on faces and objects - we need more wall shots!

[–] DukeTogo1300 10 years ago

I think any skilled director could use a wall like that with even minimal artistic effort and have it work better. They just let the direction die for 20 seconds once Russell left the frame so they could imply sexual goings-on. The implications of the shot weren't given the proper setup, and that crescendo launched the ham levels into orbit.

[–] spookyrat1 11 years ago

...but a great film-maker he wasn't.

Agreed, but he was different.