A Class Goldwyn Western For 1940

The Westerner a Merge of Fact and Fancy

Gary Cooper and Walter Brennan with Lillian Bond as Lillie Langtry

Sort of a John Ford western directed by William Wyler, The Westerner is cattlemen v. homesteaders, Gary Cooper a wanderer caught in middles. The picture was acknowledged at the time as being stolen by Walter Brennan, who was given Best Support Oscars as a matter of course from the mid-thirties through this one, which was remarkably his third win. Odd that Brennan starred so seldom. Maybe it was discussed and he said no, preferring support in name, but the lead in outcome, as was largely a case here. By the fifties and into sixties, Brennan would headline TV, plus some Disneys, one I saw where he had a dual role (The Gnome-mobile) opposite the Mary Poppins kids. Surprising too that Gary Cooper never worked with John Ford. Surely they met, knew one another. I read that Selznick wanted Ford to use Cooper in Stagecoach at a time when DOS was mulling support of the western, but Ford stood fast for John Wayne. Cooper not associated with Ford is to me like anomaly of Gable missing parlay with Howard Hawks (they were friends in a motorcycle club), or Cary Grant missing Billy Wilder (offered Sabrina, he turned it down). Roads not taken, to history’s regret.

Cooper with Doris Davenport

Wyler tries to keep The Westerner austere under Goldwyn circumstances, excess pushing at edges but averted in favor of character and engaging talk between folks that engage us, in this case Cooper as title man, Brennan as colorful Judge Roy Bean, and a girl (Doris Davenport) who came, appealed (still does), then dropped from films after an auto mishap where her legs were crushed, says IMDB, sad if accurate. She lived till 1980, all that walking with a cane. It can be a downer to dig deep into old Hollywood, but then all of life deals grief, not just movie lore. William Wyler had done westerns at director beginnings, knew the dirt/dust, stages fist work here as if back in silent saddles where he got start. Where a bad hombre is needed, he brings on Tom Tyler, always refreshing to see in A’s, even if briefly. The Westerner goes 100 minutes, a skosh long for a yarn known well even to relative non-fans of outdoor setting. It is personalities that rule, notably an uncertain friendship between the Cooper and Brennan characters. The actors would pair again, be offscreen chums; in fact, Brennan hosted a TV Coop salute shortly after latter’s death in 1961. That hour has turned up nowhere since, or has it? I’ve looked without success.

Cooper was majestic astride (ask horses he rode, or actresses). There are gallop inserts in The Westerner that seize the breath. Crying shame he didn’t do more westerns when at a peak. Postwar ones are good, sometimes better, but by then, we knew Coop was suffering in the saddle, health concerns making hard sits the harder. There seemed too a sadness about him, or was it downer tone of High Noon, Man Of The West, The Hanging Tree, others that dealt grim hands? Discount The Searchers, and John Wayne in the 50’s seems jubilant beside GC. I went harsh on Cooper some posts ago by saying he shouldn’t have done Deeds for its piling on aw-shucks mannerisms. A book Richard Griffith wrote called The Movie Stars says Frank Capra, and earlier Ernst Lubitsch, taught the actor those “tricks” he’d use from there on, often to detriment. Seems to me that Capra did much a same thing with Clark Gable on It Happened One Night. Both actors differ pre, and then post, Capra. Before him, they register simpler, leaner, more real somehow. Or maybe it was advantage of precode and freedom it allowed. There can be agreement at least, that Frank Capra exerted great influence upon all of players he worked with.

The Westerner Still Filling Theatre Dates in 1951

The Real Lillie Langtry

Pleasing with The Westerner is Cooper again laconic, less mannered, cute traded for Yup-nope he’d be kidded for, but which in final accounting works best for him. Long parts of The Westerner do without dialogue (inc. Coop to his shock waking up in bed, Brennan’s arm around him). Roy Bean is dangerous enough for there to be tension to their pal-ship, Wyler building to effective showdown finish. Bean/Brennan’s consuming fan-love for Lillie Langtry makes for a moving fade where they finally meet. Factual backstory of Bean/Langtry reveals truth, at least in spirit, of much that is dramatized here. Langtry’s career transcended Old West days; she’d even do vaudeville in later years. Alfred Lunt wrote amusingly of work with her in a fifteen-minute sketch, romantically paired even though she was 63, him 21. “Audiences were … somewhat bewildered,” he wrote, “Usually they began by thinking that I was her son … so it must have seemed a little odd to them when I suddenly began to make violent love to her. But they were really very nice about it all.” (Lunt shared this recollection with Billboard readers in 1936). The Westerner stayed popular, was reissued multiple times, and pretty much defined an evergreen. There is a DVD, plus HD runs at TCM with a Miramax logo at head and tail. Do they now own a chunk of Goldwyns, or just this one?