Anthony Mann always could direct a good Western. At the start of the 50s, Mann directed a series of Westerns that redefined the genre by adding a sense of moral ambiguity to them. These films helped introduce the idea of the Western antihero. In Devil's Doorway, Mann displays another kind of hero: the Indian. Devil's Doorway follows Lance Poole, a full-blooded Shoshone Indian who served in the Civil War, even earning the Congressional Medal of Honor. When he returned home to Wyoming, he finds that a new homestead act has effectively stolen his land out from under his feet. When a posse of locals try to take his land by force, Poole organizes an armed resistance against them with the help of escaped refugees from a nearby Indian reservation. For a film from 1950, Mann's portrayal of Indians was extremely advanced. However...he seems to know this a little too well. Mann takes every opportunity to drive the inherent melodrama surrounding the situation home. One of the last lines of the film is even along the lines of, "How terrible it would be if we would ever forget this." If Mann had made the film a little less self-conscious of its progressive politics and depictions of Indians, then it would have been more effective.
7/10
No comments:
Post a Comment