'Shane' is not a Western like Howard Hawk's 'Red River', nor a meditation on history and character like John Ford's "The Searchers." It is the most tasteful achievement ever invented to create a legend, an instant myth... Only Stevens' meticulously picturesque visuals and his evident desire to treat Western as art, could have mastered the archetypal simplicity and vitality of 'Shane.'
In 'Shane,' the good and evil govern Stevens' mastery of technique... With his golden good looks, his calm authority, and his almost magical magnetism, Alan Ladd is the mysterious lone rider called Shane... His antithesis a sinister figure all in sable and enemy, a merciless gunfighter from the Cheyenne area, named Jack Wilson (Jack Palance).
Wilson is dark, dresses in black, and even drinks black coffee from a dark black pot... Shane sparkles with personality and presence... Wilson spreads menace and evil... Shane is 'the fastest gun alive' who shoots to kill only when it is inevitable... Wilson - wearing two guns, and walking with jangling spurs - is a psychopath and a sadist, a man totally without moral redemption...
The film controls that mystical force that runs like a fine thread through a Western story - the mysterious gunslinger who rides into town at exactly the right moment that history requires him, fulfills his destiny and then rides on...
There is novelty and charm in 'Shane' because the stranger, who appears from nowhere, is a man of exceptional quality, admired by a wonderful kid with bright face and resolute boyish ways... Shane tests the spirit of this little eight year-old boy, Joey Starrett (Brandon De Wilde) in the midst of all the tensions and excitements on that open range...
What is admirable about Shane is not his skill with his gun, but his restraint in using it... Shane knows that Joey is admiring him for the wrong reasons even though he knows that if he kills Wilson, he'll have to leave the valley... He tells Joey: 'There's no living with a killing.' However we want him to show Joey how brave and fast he is... The ultimate confrontation in that depressed and faint saloon gives the movie the quality of a fine album of paintings of the frontier...
Joey's plaintive call ('Come back, Shane') is the famous cry of all the audience for a mythical idolized hero so complete and correct, who would not permit himself to be admired by a boy for living by the gun... The closing scenes remain among the most haunting memories in the history of cinema...
The characters that Stevens' actors have drawn might be considered portraits of familiar frontier types:
"Shane" is an immensely beautiful film, stunningly photographed in color, rich in memorable and exhilarating moments... Every scene is composed with extreme care:
Certainly "Shane" is a romantic film, and yet it is full of integrity about time and place... It may be interesting to compare the idealized interest, attraction and love between Shane and Marion with the unspoken love between John Wayne and Dorothy Jordan in 'The Searchers.' In the latter film, Dorothy caresses Wayne's army cape and is observed by Ward Bond, who simply notices her gesture and looks away... In 'Shane', Marion implies her love for Shane as she cautions her son Joey about becoming attached to him...
In "Shane," Stevens combined so many elements that are 'classically' required and combines them so well He directed 'Shane' with great feeling, and turned it into a classic...
In 'Shane,' the good and evil govern Stevens' mastery of technique... With his golden good looks, his calm authority, and his almost magical magnetism, Alan Ladd is the mysterious lone rider called Shane... His antithesis a sinister figure all in sable and enemy, a merciless gunfighter from the Cheyenne area, named Jack Wilson (Jack Palance).
Wilson is dark, dresses in black, and even drinks black coffee from a dark black pot... Shane sparkles with personality and presence... Wilson spreads menace and evil... Shane is 'the fastest gun alive' who shoots to kill only when it is inevitable... Wilson - wearing two guns, and walking with jangling spurs - is a psychopath and a sadist, a man totally without moral redemption...
The film controls that mystical force that runs like a fine thread through a Western story - the mysterious gunslinger who rides into town at exactly the right moment that history requires him, fulfills his destiny and then rides on...
There is novelty and charm in 'Shane' because the stranger, who appears from nowhere, is a man of exceptional quality, admired by a wonderful kid with bright face and resolute boyish ways... Shane tests the spirit of this little eight year-old boy, Joey Starrett (Brandon De Wilde) in the midst of all the tensions and excitements on that open range...
What is admirable about Shane is not his skill with his gun, but his restraint in using it... Shane knows that Joey is admiring him for the wrong reasons even though he knows that if he kills Wilson, he'll have to leave the valley... He tells Joey: 'There's no living with a killing.' However we want him to show Joey how brave and fast he is... The ultimate confrontation in that depressed and faint saloon gives the movie the quality of a fine album of paintings of the frontier...
Joey's plaintive call ('Come back, Shane') is the famous cry of all the audience for a mythical idolized hero so complete and correct, who would not permit himself to be admired by a boy for living by the gun... The closing scenes remain among the most haunting memories in the history of cinema...
The characters that Stevens' actors have drawn might be considered portraits of familiar frontier types:
- Marian Starrett (Jean Arthur) is the mother who criticizes Shane for initiating her young boy into young manhood by passing on his values... She is the little woman unsettled who always wanders: 'What are you fighting for? She is the married woman who reveals an unspoken love...
- Joe Starrett (Van Heflin), is the stubborn father and a hard working rancher determined, with his forcible patience and fortitude, to build a life on the land for his family...
- Rufus Ryker (Emile Meyer) is the evil aging cattle rancher who considers the arrival of homesteaders is reducing grazing opportunities for his herds limiting their access to water... He does everything to rid the land of the humble farmers...
- Morgan Ryker (John Dierkes) is Rufus' brother/foreman, who invites Starrett to "talk" reasonably...
- Chris Calloway (Ben Johnson) is the authentic cowboy who has had a change of heart and has quit Ryker's bunch... He warns Shane in the barn that "Starrett is up against a stacked deck."
- Frank 'Stonewall' Torrey (Elisha Cook Jr.) is the pale-eyed pathetic local farmer who, in a fit of fury and mad courage, attempts to challenge his tormentor... But an outraged amateur can never beat an accomplished professional... He is brutally gunned down in the first shocking and horrific showdown on the Western screen... Palance toys with the little man and kills him in one of the most realistic scenes staged until that time...
"Shane" is an immensely beautiful film, stunningly photographed in color, rich in memorable and exhilarating moments... Every scene is composed with extreme care:
- The deer will raise its head and frame the oncoming rider perfectly between the branches of his antlers...
- Shane's first appearance descending into a majestic valley rimmed by mountains, shining a pearl-handled 'six-shooter' gun...
- Shane friendship with Joe Starrett, cemented that evening as together they swing axes in common task to cut and pull up a large tree stump...
- Their energy battle (filmed through the windows of the cabin and through the frantic, kicking hooves of horses disturbed by their vicious struggle) to determine who will go to town to face Ryker's hired gun...
- Shane slow ride into town for a showdown... The low tracking camera angle, the darkness, and the musical soundtrack emphasize Shane's heroic yet lonely position on the horizon, set among the wide view of the mountains...
Certainly "Shane" is a romantic film, and yet it is full of integrity about time and place... It may be interesting to compare the idealized interest, attraction and love between Shane and Marion with the unspoken love between John Wayne and Dorothy Jordan in 'The Searchers.' In the latter film, Dorothy caresses Wayne's army cape and is observed by Ward Bond, who simply notices her gesture and looks away... In 'Shane', Marion implies her love for Shane as she cautions her son Joey about becoming attached to him...
In "Shane," Stevens combined so many elements that are 'classically' required and combines them so well He directed 'Shane' with great feeling, and turned it into a classic...