I saw Man In the Saddle decades ago and rewatched it recently. It is at once memorable and yet well below average. Memorable because instead of the usual revenge plot or greed-driven villainy, the two main villains are men obsessed with women who are indifferent to them and who finally explode into shocking violence which lingers after everything else about the film is forgotten. Well below average because of an underdeveloped script, flaccid direction, miscasting, and indifferent performances.
The miscasting begins with the star. Randolph Scott was 53 when this movie was made and while the leathery old dog might still be able to turn a few bonnets, he does seem a bit long in the tooth to find himself being chased by two women young enough to be his daughters. The implications of the plot may have bothered Scott. I saw Man In the Saddle back to back with Riding Shotgun and his torpid performance here is a night and day contrast with his forceful effort in the more traditional Shotgun. The two leading ladies, Ellen Drew and Joan Leslie, were third-stringers from the forties whose careers faded with their youth. Drew gets by in an undemanding part which requires little more than looking longingly in the direction of Scott now and then, but Leslie is woefully out of her depth. Laurie Bidwell Isham is an icy, calculating woman who shucks Scott, the love of her life, to enter into a business marriage with the wealthy Will Isham, well played by Alexander Knox. She coldly rebuffs the repressed Isham's fumbling intimations of affection, leaving no doubt that one clause in their marriage contract was separate bedrooms. She also tosses her father out of her wedding reception and her life as he reminds her all too forcefully that she came from the wrong side of the pasture. The echoes of the wedding bells have barely faded before she is secretly riding under the stars back to Scott. This role required an actress of the depth of a Patricia Neal. It got Leslie rehashing her chirpy ingenue performances of the war years.
Alexander Knox as Will Isham and John Russell as Hugh Clagg, the two spurned lovers, are the movie's only real assets. Isham goes sour, but he has a better side and one gets the impression an affectionate Laurie might have brought it out. When Laurie offers to go away with him at the climax, he abandons all plans for revenge or power and briskly agrees, only to be almost immediately shot down by his own hired gun. Russell is intense in the redundant role of a man hopelessly obsessed with Drew. I think he is miscast. He is twenty years younger than Scott, is strikingly handsome, and has an engaging smile. He should have switched roles with Richard Rober, pallid as a foppish gunslinger. Russell would have made a much more menacing killer. Rober's ordinary looks and bland personality might have convinced as the rejected suitor.
The movie only really comes alive when Isham or Clagg boil over into outbursts of violence. The rest is slow soap-opera complications and heavy-handed comedy relief, punctuated by a few ordinary action scenes. The final shootout between Scott and Rober is forgettable. Andre De Toth proves himself a limited director. The script meanders along various tangents, but leaves the pivotal character of Isham somewhat underdeveloped and the perhaps even more pivotal character of Laurie totally undeveloped. She marries a man she doesn't love for his money and when he is killed at least partially because of her behavior, she ends up with the money. Is that all? A better script would have fleshed out this role and possibly fished for some irony in the ending.
All in all, there might have been a good movie underneath all the dross struggling to get out, but it never made it. As is, seeing and hearing a young Ernie Ford sing is a nostalgic treat. Otherwise, at best a time filler for a rainy day.
The miscasting begins with the star. Randolph Scott was 53 when this movie was made and while the leathery old dog might still be able to turn a few bonnets, he does seem a bit long in the tooth to find himself being chased by two women young enough to be his daughters. The implications of the plot may have bothered Scott. I saw Man In the Saddle back to back with Riding Shotgun and his torpid performance here is a night and day contrast with his forceful effort in the more traditional Shotgun. The two leading ladies, Ellen Drew and Joan Leslie, were third-stringers from the forties whose careers faded with their youth. Drew gets by in an undemanding part which requires little more than looking longingly in the direction of Scott now and then, but Leslie is woefully out of her depth. Laurie Bidwell Isham is an icy, calculating woman who shucks Scott, the love of her life, to enter into a business marriage with the wealthy Will Isham, well played by Alexander Knox. She coldly rebuffs the repressed Isham's fumbling intimations of affection, leaving no doubt that one clause in their marriage contract was separate bedrooms. She also tosses her father out of her wedding reception and her life as he reminds her all too forcefully that she came from the wrong side of the pasture. The echoes of the wedding bells have barely faded before she is secretly riding under the stars back to Scott. This role required an actress of the depth of a Patricia Neal. It got Leslie rehashing her chirpy ingenue performances of the war years.
Alexander Knox as Will Isham and John Russell as Hugh Clagg, the two spurned lovers, are the movie's only real assets. Isham goes sour, but he has a better side and one gets the impression an affectionate Laurie might have brought it out. When Laurie offers to go away with him at the climax, he abandons all plans for revenge or power and briskly agrees, only to be almost immediately shot down by his own hired gun. Russell is intense in the redundant role of a man hopelessly obsessed with Drew. I think he is miscast. He is twenty years younger than Scott, is strikingly handsome, and has an engaging smile. He should have switched roles with Richard Rober, pallid as a foppish gunslinger. Russell would have made a much more menacing killer. Rober's ordinary looks and bland personality might have convinced as the rejected suitor.
The movie only really comes alive when Isham or Clagg boil over into outbursts of violence. The rest is slow soap-opera complications and heavy-handed comedy relief, punctuated by a few ordinary action scenes. The final shootout between Scott and Rober is forgettable. Andre De Toth proves himself a limited director. The script meanders along various tangents, but leaves the pivotal character of Isham somewhat underdeveloped and the perhaps even more pivotal character of Laurie totally undeveloped. She marries a man she doesn't love for his money and when he is killed at least partially because of her behavior, she ends up with the money. Is that all? A better script would have fleshed out this role and possibly fished for some irony in the ending.
All in all, there might have been a good movie underneath all the dross struggling to get out, but it never made it. As is, seeing and hearing a young Ernie Ford sing is a nostalgic treat. Otherwise, at best a time filler for a rainy day.