Screenplay Millard Kaufman, adaptation Don McGuire, story Howard Breslin.
Filmed mainly in California with that old faithful the Mojave Desert, Arizona, to hand. Kept thinking of Leone.
A train stops in a tiny desert town where it never stops, a one-armed man alights, and upsets all five of the townsfolk immediately. Tight, now-classic thriller from MGM. Spencer Tracy (winning one of his nine Oscar nominations), Robert Ryan, Walter Brennan, Ernest Borgnine, Anne Francis, Dean Jagger (Executive Suite, Pursued), Lee Marvin (thought it was James Coburn all the way through).
Shot by William C Mellor in CinemaScope and Eastmancolor, scored by the talented André Previn.
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| Borgnine: "We never rehearsed.. when Tracy is sitting on the bench and Robert Ryan is talking to him, Tracy has his head down. And I'm there thinking, 'Nobody's going to be looking at him.' And on screen you couldn't take your eyes off him. And Bob Ryan was doing everything but loosen his pants." |
Must have looked terrible cropped / pan and scan on TV when I first saw it, 11/10/75. Review: 'Tough, well made thriller, well acted.' It was a flop, despite additional Oscar nominations for Sturges and Kaufman.
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