Saddle the Wind Review
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Saddle the Wind Feature
- Rod Serling (THE TWILIGHT ZONE) provides the script for this tense, reflective Western. Steve (Robert Taylor) is a gunfighter who has hung up his six-shooter for a quiet life as a rancher. But when his trigger-happy younger brother (John Cassavetes) shows up, anxious to prove himself, a single act of violence unleashes a tide of bloodshed greater than any of them could have imagined. Format: DV
The credits of
Saddle the Wind feature two unlikely names to be connected with a Western: the script is by Rod Serling (pre-
Twilight Zone), and the wind in need of saddling is personified by John Cassavetes, doing an 1860s variation on a 1950s juvenile delinquent. He's kid brother to Robert Taylor, an ex-gunfighter who's turned rancher with the blessing of range baron Donald Crisp. The peace of their CinemaScope-pretty valley is variously threatened by gunman Charles McGraw, an extended family of squatters (headed by Royal Dano in anguished righteousness mode), and most of all the volatile, gun-happy Cassavetes.
Saddle the Wind turns out to be something of a discovery, thanks to Serling's metaphor-rich dialogue and intriguingly oblique direction by Robert Parrish. There's some facile '50s-TV psychologizing, but mood trumps plot, and the inevitable showdown takes a surprising turn. Plus it never hurts to have Julie London around to gaze soulfully and sing the title song.
--Richard T. Jameson
SADDLE THE WIND - DVD Movie
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Jul 04, 2011 17:11:04
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