Will Lockhart (James Stewart) and Charley O’Leary (Wallace Ford) arrive in the small town of Coronado with a load of supplies earmarked for the local store and its owner Barbara Waggoman (Cathy O’Donnell). While looking for some cargo to carry back, they accidentally trespass on Barb Ranch lands, earn the ire of Dave Waggoman (Alex Nicoli), and lose the wagons, the donkeys, and their self-respect. Although Barb Ranch manager Vic Hansbro (Arthur Kennedy) tries to intervene, he’s pretty much too late to stop the destruction.
Everyone in town expects Lockhart to leave after that. But he sticks around. Even when the Barb Ranch owner and patriarch Alec Waggoman (Donald Crisp) pays Lockhart off, Lockhart stays. Even when Sheriff Tom Quigby (James Millican) warns him off, Lockhart stays. Even when he’s framed for murdering the town drunk, Lockhart stalwartly refuses to go on back home to Laramie or anyplace else. “When you leaving town?” is almost a more popular question than “Why’d you come here?” Lockhart is equally mum on both since they are tethered at the hip.
In fact, Lockhart has all the reason in the world to stay. He’s a man driven by a quest. He’s in town not merely to deliver supplies, but to find out who’s been arming Apaches with repeater rifles. A war party armed with these ambushed a squad of U.S. Cavalrymen on regular patrol and killed every single man, including Lockhart’s own brother. Someone from this town supplied those Apaches with those weapons, and Lockhart is eager to discover who and see justice done. From the moment he arrives in town, justice and vengeance might not be too different from one another.
Before he will get his answers, however, Lockhart will rub several man the wrong way, further drive a wedge between an already rocky father and son pairing, fall under the spell of a woman promised to another, land in the employ of a lively local shit stirrer Kate Canaday (Aline MacMahon), and wind up crippled in one hand. But nothing will stop him until he has his satisfaction.
For his final western film collaboration with Stewart, Anthony Mann stirs mystery and suspense elements along with some intriguing characterizations into the western genre, delivering a more straightforward plot that previous efforts. However, The Man From Laramie (1955) is nevertheless an endearing flick.
This would be the fifth western collaboration and the seventh picture Stewart and Mann made together. Only the Cold War fighter plane epic, Strategic Air Command (1955) would follow. Though they began work on a sixth western, a falling out turned the reins of Night Passage (1957) from Mann over to director James Nielson. One wonders how that would have turned out had Mann stayed. Unfortunately, what started as creative differences blossomed into heated words. Rankled feelings would persist such that neither Mann nor Stewart would try to speak to one another again. The fertile collaboration period came to a permanent close with only eight flicks.
Compared to the dynamic visuals and tight writing of Winchester ’73 (1950), the colorful excoriation of man’s greed in Bend of the River (1952), and the sprawling look and feel of wintry The Far Country (1954), The Man From Laramie is a tad underwhelming. However, it simmers in a more pleasing, subtle way than those earlier features. Stewart carries rage and purpose, but it’s less affected. Also, the film reunites Stewart with Arthur Kennedy for some fun sparring matches, both verbal and physical. The two men have a curious chemistry together. It’s less outright homoerotic here than what they shared in Bend of the River, but there’s certainly … something crackling between these two men, even if they might not be wholly aware of it.
The film takes full advantage of its CinemaScope lenses to present the world as a painterly vista. However, it’s not just the beauty of nature that excels here. When Stewart’s Lockhart walks out of a building to take on Dave in a slugfest, the camera dollies back to follow him. As it does, the edges of the frame fill up with numerous Puebla Indians and townsfolk, making it appear that Lockhart is leaving the entire civilized world behind in order to engage his enemy. It’s a fascinating shot, colorful and dynamic and overflowing with mood.
Cinematographer Charles Lang is really playing around with the new lens series on this picture, seeing what can be done. He had quite a lengthy career prior to shooting this film, including such projects as Desert Fury (1947) and The Uninvited (1944). He would go on to even more high profile, terrific pictures, including Some Like it Hot (1959) and The Magnificent Seven (1960). Dude had quite a way with photography, lighting, the whole kit and caboodle.
Stewart is the star and rightfully so. He has a measured approach to the character, and a natural ability to slide into Lockhart’s skin and make it his own. The director makes good use of this, and Stewart gives the role his all. The character is once more a driven sort, the kind who has his mission and has neither time nor patience for the niceties of civilized behavior. We meet him en route to the town, visiting the site of a Cavalry massacre, and his one friend in the world tries to warn him off from his mission. Unfortunately, as a voice of reason Charley O’Leary is not terribly convincing when faced against a man who is bound and determined to his course of action. Once they reach town, however, Barbara brings out Lockhart’s human side with a cup of tea and conversation. He’s returned to the more straightforward course of action when encountering her cousin Dave, having his wagons burned, his mules shot, and his person assaulted for “stealing” from the freely available salt flat. Stewart handles these shifts with ease, giving us a complicated but approachable man.
The real surprise of the thing is how well played antagonist Dave Waggoman is. Alex Nicol makes him a child in an adult’s body. Not a nice kid, this is the sort that burns ants with magnifying glasses and tortures puppies. He’s a sadistic son of a bitch, but he’s also capable of these weirdly childish outburst and emotional responses. When the character has the gun shot from his hand, he makes a sound like an infuriated and hurt toddler. It’s creepy and nothing short of brilliant.
Once again, Arthur Kennedy gets to sink his teeth into a meaty role. Vic is just as complicated a character as Stewart’s Lockhart. The character is entangled in the Waggoman family as the son the patriarch never had, he’s his “brother’s” keeper, and he’s the most sympathetic Cain I’ve seen on film. While embodying this fascinating personality, Kennedy has the chance to mutter macho lines like “Don’t push me again,” and bring to them the barely restrained rage he’s terrific at performing, but his character also got a romantic angle this time around that’s endearing. Less of an enigma and more of a good man in a bad spot, Kennedy plays Vic with style.
One of the pleasant discoveries is how much more in line this picture is with other westerns. The Man From Laramie does not challenge genre or social conventions in quite the same ways that Bend of the River or The Far Country did. It even ends with the outsider being pushed away from the now stable, settled society that was in turmoil at his arrival. Once he grapples with the lawless elements, he is stained by them and must be removed if the community is to have any sort of a chance. As suggested by the title and many of the townsfolk, the man who came from Laramie is not welcome to stay. He must eventually go home.
The Man From Laramie is a crowd pleaser of a picture, which takes full advantage of the Cinemascope wide screen to tell a larger than life story. It’s a tale of revenge and an outsider invading a community, who ousts the antisocial elements, as are most of the collaborations between Mann and Stewart. Here, we have a picture that’s more or less a straight-ahead entertainment.
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The Man From Laramie is available in DVD, Blu-ray, and VOD editions.
Next week, we kick off another month of Anthony Mann’s work, starting with his three non-wester collaborations with James Stewart. Thunder Bay (1953) finds Stewart as an idealist in catting (searching for oil to exploit), and he’s got an idea for deep water that might change the world … if someone will invest in his vision. It is available in DVD, Blu-ray, and VOD editions. It is also streaming on the Criterion Channel at present.
Writing for “When You Leaving Town? The Man From Laramie (1955)” is copyright © 2023 by Daniel R. Robichaud.
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