Shane (1953)
Shane on the IMDb
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Paramount DVD. Alan Ladd, Jean Arthur, Van Heflin, Brandon De Wilde, Jack Palance in a George Stevens film. My tastes must have matured over the
years because I bought this just
remembering how the kid was so damn annoying
when I last saw it. Well, Brandon De Wilde far from charmed me, but after picking this
up and watching it for the first time since a teen-aged cable screening I must say that it's one
of the better films I have ever seen, at least in the top 10%. And I
didn't even play fair -- I started this a few minutes after 3 am figuring it'd
be good background TV to doze off to, well the next thing I knew it was about 5
am and I was wide-awake. There isn't
one second in the film that drags, Alan Ladd, an actor who I always enjoy
despite having grown up listening to my father saying he was too short to ever be a
real tough guy, is the perfect white hat gunslinger trying to give up the gun, and by
the same token what better black hat has there been besides Jack Palance, who is
as menacing as ever here. Jean Arthur is charming, seeming to have made
that latter career Myrna Loy type shift from perfect girlfriend to perfect wife
and mother and Van Heflin is every bit the man that Shane is himself, it's just
he's a family guy trying to tend to the ranch while Shane is a recently ex-gunslinger.
Okay, I even enjoyed Little Joey to some degree, though I must say I can't
remember whining so much when I was a kid.
The most interesting role in this entire film may have been that of old Ryker, who is the bad guy trying to take all of the settlers' land away, and is the S.O.B. who brought in Jack Palance to escalate the conflict to gun-play, but at the same time comes off as pretty reasonable before bringing in Jack-O-Lantern Jack. He makes the impression that he honestly feels that he's in the right, and while he doesn't want to hear any talk suggesting that he isn't, he does make some valid points. You get the feeling that if there were a prequel showing how that same land came to be settled the hero of that production would be Ryker. Still, he's a bit of a nasty old man, who's time has passed and gets what he deserves. The understated love triangle between the Heflin-Arthur-Ladd characters is done beautifully as well, as all of the characters are very likeable and all seem to know that Jean Arthur, as Marian Starrett, while not dissatisfied with her husband, is strongly attracted to Shane. Ryker makes Shane uncomfortable early on when he suggests Shane is hanging around just to be around such a fine woman, and Heflin, as husband Joe Starrett, when faced with his own mortality lays it all out pretty plainly when he tells the missus that he sees what's going on and the he can also see she'll be well cared for if any harm comes to him. I should also mention that familiar character actor Elisha Cook Jr. has a part in here as seemingly the lone Confederate settler and more than carries his own weight. This film deserves all of the praise that it receives.
The DVD is another story. I can't believe there is not a wide-screen 2-disc version available with tons of extras. Surely there will be. But I'm happy with my $8.99 investment here, even if it is a full screen presentation with the only meaningful extra being a George Stevens Jr./Ivan Moffat commentary track laid over the film. I probably won't ever get to the commentary, I usually don't -- I'll always watch documentaries and features included with classics though, but Shane doesn't have any besides the trailer. The colors are vivid on this print, though towards the end there is a small portion that could be cleaned up a little. Again, for the money this is an A+ by virtue of the film alone, but as for what I'd like to see, what I'd pay $20-$25 for in my mind, discounting the price and the film itself, this is a C-.
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