Shane (2013)

Often mentioned as one of the greatest westerns ever, it is easy to see why. This film stands as a masterpiece of the art, even more so since it was filmed so long ago. It starts with a great story, the story of Shane (Alan Ladd), a quiet gunslinger who is trying to escape his past and befriends a pioneer family that has settled out west. He attempts to settle down and become a hired hand to Joe Starrett (Van Heflin) and his wife Marian (Jean Arthur), but the ranchers who need to drive cattle through the homesteaders' property are attempting to drive them out. Shane tries to stay out of the disputes, but keeps being drawn in and is finally compelled to put his six shooter back on when the ranchers hire Jack Wilson (Jack Palance) a noted gunfighter to intimidate the farmers.

This story is outstanding in so many ways. It is a classic battle of good and evil. It has its share of fist fights and shoot outs, but this film is more about principles than action. It exemplifies principles and values that unfortunately have become outdated in today's society such as, character, integrity, loyalty, pride in accomplishment, persistence and the willingness to fight for what is right. It is also an excellent human interest story and succeeds in getting the viewer to love the homesteaders and hate the ranchers.

George Stevens directed this film late in a notable career and does a splendid job. The locations were breathtaking, shot with majestic mountains in the background of almost every scene. The cinematography was stunning, and the color rich despite the fact that it was filmed almost 50 years ago.

The acting was superlative. Van Heflin wins us over almost immediately with his high minded principles and unshakeable character. He actually has far more lines than Ladd, who was more of an icon of strength than a vocal character. Jack Palance is the archetypal western villain and went on in his career to become the most prominent and enduring villain in movie history. His sneering arrogance and haughty gait made him the villain we loved to hate for decades.

Elisha Cook, as Stonewall Torrey, had a prolific career as a supporting actor, with over 150 appearances in film an TV that spanned almost 60 years. This is one of his best an most memorable roles as a fearless, proud and petulant former confederate that gets goaded into a gunfight with Jack Palance.

Brandon DeWilde as young Joey, gave a compelling performance. One of the best scenes in the movie was when he asked Shane to shoot at a small rock and Shane shot it 5 or 6 times and hit it every time. The wide eyed look of surprise was terrific. Though he went on to do about a dozen mostly minor films, he was never able to capitalize on his success in this role.

Finally, there is Alan Ladd. I've often heard criticisms of his performance of being too low key. I could not disagree more. His understated performance made him loom large as an imposing figure in the film. It created an almost godlike presence. This strong silent portrayal is very attractive adding humility to his many positive qualities. This unassuming style is also what made Gary Cooper so popular.

This film is on my top fifty list of all time. It is a magnum opus that the film industry can be proud of. It combines great filmmaking, direction and acting with a memorable and morally instructive story. This should be required viewing for any serious film buff. A perfect 10.

Alan Ladd starred in one of the most spare and beautiful westerns ever captured on film in George Stevens' portrait of a lonely gunfighter and the bond he forms with a family of homesteaders under seige out west. Jack Schaefer's very good western novella was lofted to greatness by Ladd's quiet performance as the gunfighter Shane, who gets a glimpse of the life he would have preferred rather than the hand he was dealt.

A story and film which sounds simple, and is often described as such, is really anything but, its complexity hidden by its scope and the subtle manner in which it is told. Shane is the mythic figure, riding in on the horizon and staying to help a family fend off a rancher trying to drive the farmers off their land. It is a story of changing times and complex relationships.

Shane forms a bond with farmer Van Heflin and becomes his friend because of his decency and acceptance of Shane, even though Shane's gun and his readiness to draw at the slightest sound reveals a past and a way of life Shane would like to live down. Shane knows he is on the way out as the west changes and it is ironic that he chooses to help the family trying to build a town and a community, the very things that will be his demise.

Brandon De Wilde is excellent as the young boy who needs a larger than life hero to look up to and finds him in Shane. As he and Shane form a bond, an inevitable confrontation between a deadly gunfighter hired to get rid of the homesteaders will force him to put on his gun and live up to everything the young boy feels in his heart for Shane.

Jean Arthur gives a wonderful and often overlooked performance as the wife who loves her husband and son dearly, but can not deny the feelings she has for Shane. There is a point in the film where she tells her husband to just hold her and not ask any questions; everyone who has been watching knows why she does this. It is a platonic love for Shane she would never act on but it is still there.

Heflin is also excellent as a solid man trying to hold the other farmers together even as a deadly gunfighter in black, symbolic of the good verses evil of the story, kills one of their own. He is no fool and senses the feelings between his wife and Shane, but knows that neither would ever betray him; Arthur because she loves him and Shane because it is not the kind of man he is.

Shane's feelings for Arthur are not the threatening kind, but more a loneliness when he looks at her, as she represents everything he wanted but knows he will never have because he is a gunfighter. He tells Arthur that a gun is just a tool like an axe or a shovel, no better or worse than the man who carries it. We know Shane is the good man, and Jack Palance the bad man, quick on the draw and evil, but no match for the soft spoken but deadly Shane.

The way the inevitable gunfight comes about and the way this film ends continues the larger than life myth of the American gunfighter. There is a nice score from Victor Young and good support from Edgar Buchanan as a farmer and Ben Johnson as a rancher who changes his spots, won over by the kind of man Shane shows himself to be.

Shane is not only one of the great westerns, but one of the best films of any genre. It is an artistic portrait of a gunfighter and the changing landscape of the American west, as general stores and churches began to replace the lawlessness that had been settled by a fast and accurate draw for so many years.

If you do not own Shane, your film library is incomplete. Every serious film buff has a spot for this masterpiece on their shelf somewhere. Make one on yours.

Buy Shane (2013) Now

Many people believe "The Searchers" is the greatest western ever made, but for my money, "Shane" beats it, hands down. The cinematography here is breathtaking, with the Tetons looming majestically in the distance. Alan Ladd never looked or sounded better, and he plays the title role with an understated elegance that belies the inherent roughness of Shane's character.

Van Heflin gives his best performance as the long-suffering Joe Starrett and Jean Arthur has her best role since her Frank Capra films of the 1930's. She conveys just the right amount of sexual interest in Shane, combined with restraint and a genuine regard for her husband.

There is an abundance of memorable, brilliant scenes: "Tory is dead!" as they deliver "Stonewall's" body back to the settlement. All of Alan Ladd's scenes with little Joey are poignant and beautifully drawn. Of course, the final scene, with Joey shouting, "Shane (echo....) Mama wants you (echo...) I know she does" never fails to brings tears to the eyes, even after multiple viewings.

A genuine classic.

Read Best Reviews of Shane (2013) Here

'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:

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...

Want Shane (2013) Discount?

Although the theatrical aspect ratio of this movie was 1.66:1, while the DVD aspect ratio is 4:3, this is not a "Pan&Scan" DVD. In other words, almost none of the original theatrical image has been removed for exhibition on a 4:3 television screen. The film negative aspect ratio was 1.37:1 (almost 4:3), and for theatrical exhibition, the image was "matted" (partially covered from the top down and bottom up) to produce a 1.66:1 image. For exhibition on a 4:3 television screen, the "mattes" have simply been removed. So the DVD exhibition actually shows 17.5 percent more image than the theatrical exhibition. For a movie made in this fashion within the last 15 to 20 years, I would guess that the movie was likely filmed this way so that the theatrical image wouldn't be butchered on television by the "Pan&Scan" process, and because the filmmakers didn't foresee the current state of the home video market, where consumers prefer movies presented in their theatrical aspect ratio, rather than in a ratio in which the image will fill up their 4:3 television screen (if there is a difference). However, with "Shane", I recall an article in a DVD magazine which stated that the film was originally intended to be shown in theaters in the 1.37:1 ratio, but the 1.66:1 ratio was substituted after the film was shot, so that the film could have the added draw of being a "widescreen" movie, which was a relatively new thing in 1953, but which was becoming a major audience drawing point. This DVD presents the movie in the aspect ratio in which the filmmakers shot the movie and originally intended it to be shown in theaters, but it does not present the movie in the aspect ratio in which it was finally seen upon original release in a movie theater (for that, the DVD would have to present the movie in a "matted widescreen" format). If you're okay with that, enjoy!

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