Warlock [DVD]

Fabulous film about a town dealing with evil, recalling High Noon in some respects. Warlock means a male witch and Anthony Quinn scores highly as that "demon." Henry Fonda must decide weather to act or not, Dorothy Malone waits on the sidelines as if a kind of westernized tsunami were about to hitRichard Widmark is always splendid, as are the rest of this excellent cast.Dmytryk directed a number of films for 20th century Fox,Broken lance, The Blue Angel, The Young Lions, etc. With Warlock, as with The Blue Angel, the studio started to act against Dmytryk for his denunciation of people in the business as reds. Prison frightened him, and to get out he was supposed to inform. He did, and he demanded for the names he gave, a contract with at least two studios where he could direct. Fox as one and Columbia was another.Brando, who split with Kazan over his informing on people had no ruble actin in Te Young Lions. Bogart did The Left Hand of God with Dymytryk directing. There were shock waves among those indited and those fighting the McCarthy madness. Bogart was in te forefront, and he was terrorized into showing Hollywood at least that he was not a Red and that he supported the HUA to the core. Lauren Bacall went over the Warner Bros to star in a John Wayne film Blood Ally. Wayne was one o the most vociferous of the Red Baiters at that time. It looked good to be in a film with him. Bacall signed on and the film was about Chinese Communists, with all of the cliches that go with Wayne films.Spencer Tracy did Broken Lance, Montgomery Clift starred in The Young Lions. Then McCarthy was out, suddenly and liberal Hollywood to revenge. Bacall never made a feature film with her as the star after 1958s Designing Woman. Films with Dymytryk at the helm were avoided and openly criticized in a way not seen Hollywood ever. . Dymytryk's films were dead in the water..Warlock was one of them. I saw that film many times and every time I went to see it the theater was practically empty. The Blue Angel with Mai Britt, a Swedish new comer who starred with Brando in The Young Lions, barely made it to the screen,,a big film nonetheless, but everyone who saw Dymytryk's name on a film, they stayed away.Warlock was caught in the fallout of the fall of Joe McCarthy.Dymytryk was shunned until 1963 he directed the very lucrative film, The Carpetbaggers. He went on to direct Bette Davis in Where Love Has Gone..Nothing very good in either of these films, but one can see the sloth, the ennui of the director as ,eg, when Bette Davis and Susan H wanted much of Where Love Has Gone re-shot with a new director.Sad for Dymytryk, as he did have a flair, and directed with the CinemaScope camera with great elegance. Not a director for the stars of the films he did direct, but definitely not a nobody. But, the message here is, Don't inform on your friends, especially out of fear.I would look for,as an aside, The Blue Angel, a remake of the Dietrich version of 1930. It is excellent. With Curt Jurgens as the lust-filled professor, and Mai Britt as the blue angel. In color and CinemaScope!.

In the late 50s several outstanding westerns came out following "High Noon" that offered the same intensity in technicolor or cinemascope, "Gunfight at the O.K. Corral," "Last Train from Gun Hill," and this feature "Warlock" starring Henry Fonda, Anthony Quinn and Richard Widmark; Deforest Kelley (Earp's brother in "Gunfighrt at OK. Corral") stokes the fire of the outlaws in this drama. Of the last three films, this is the only philosophical western to date, where all the cowboys seem to be reflective and thoughtful. Its running time was always shortened and narrowed to a pan-and-scan format for television circulation. Until this release I had never seen this film in its entirety. Its relevance in the age of Trump should not be lost on the viewer. For this film is about an impatient town that allowed its consensus to send for a hired gunslinger to handle its lawlessness, to get it back to its former peaceful existence. A very contemporary notion. The hireling is Henry Fonda and his sidekick, Anthony Quinn. The town goes along with the strictures of the new sheriff until they discover the unlawful means that guaranteed constant victories over villains. Observing the confrontation between law-and-order/right or wrong is Richard Widmark, who was a part of a gang at one time and wrestles with his conscience cooly, with growing consciousness. (Uncredited in this film is Frank Gorshin who plays Widmark's brother.) As the movie plays out with resistance growing against the heavy-handed control over events, there is still time for romance with Dorothy Malone actively arguing her stake on events (romance or widowhood). Unlike the standard western there is no comic relief (Gabby Hayes or Andy Devine) to lighten the machismo. Like "High Noon," events force a showdown between the good and bad elements of the arrangement. With the seasoned direction of Edward Dymtryk from a literate script the movie makes more sense than "High Noon" here, that was tied to blacklisting of writers and McCarthyism too obviously to be practical. Fonda gets to demonstrate his lethal gun play, teasing you to an exciting finish, when he draws his two gold handled Colts and lets them fly to an unpredictable finish. You see, in this wild west, a townspeople is allowed to learn from their mistakes and find a way to expel a dangerous solution when one individual makes a stand with the town confidently behind him. Whether America will learn from Trump's flaws remains to play out.

Vendeur très sérieux. Reçu ma commande rapidement et en très bon état.Je recommande!!!

Dramatische Geschichte. Gut und Böse nicht auf den ersten Blick zu erkennen. Exzellente Darsteller. Gute Kamera.

Se trata de un atractivo drama que denuncia las miserias de la fuerza bruta, sea puesta en contra de la ley o al servicio de ésta. Los personajes son suficientemente ambigüos (nadie es sólo bueno o malo) para que resulten convincentes. Tres actores irrepetibles, cada uno perfectamente adecuado para su papel, dan sabor y estilo a este western psicológico de Dmytryk donde predomina la tensión emocional sobre tiros y peleas.Este magnífico título, recomendable para todos los públicos, no ha perdido actualidad. Y demuestra que un buen western no precisa mucha acción y sí un guión inteligente que justifique todo lo que ocurre.

Enjoyable Film Noir Western with unusual central relationship between Fonda & Quinn. Another great performance from Richard Widmark.

I saw this movie on TCM and decided when I saw it priced at only $6.99 on Amazon that it was a must have to my collection. It has an amazing cast of talented actors and the script and acting are five stars. I won't outline the story as others have done so but believe me when I say that this movie which a lot of people like myself never heard of before turns out to be a gem.