From the Rental Vault: Warlock (1959)

Although some great Westerns happened along during most decades that we've had movies, the 1950s stands out for offering some of the tops in the field -- both as Westerns and as movies. Hollywood's top directors, actors and screenwriters did not disdain the genre but often viewed it as the pallette they used for their work. It could serve to get an important idea in front of people who might not otherwise encounter it, as long as it was a good story with good work.

Warlock, with Richard Widmark, Henry Fonda, Dorothy Malone and Anthony Quinn, was one of those "thinking person's" kind of Westerns. Widmark teamed with one of his favorite directors, Edward Dymytrk, to bring Fonda and the other top-level cast on board in filming Robert Arthur's adaptation of Oakley Hall's Pulitzer-nominated novel.

The southwestern mining town of Warlock is suffering because it is not incorporated and can't hire a sheriff of its own. Stuck with ineffective deputies, the townspeople are at the mercy of outlaw leader Abe McQuown until they decide to bring in gunslinger and town tamer Clay Blaisedell (Fonda) as a marshal. Blaisedell, along with his partner Joe Morgan (Quinn) set up shop in a saloon and soon begin to impose their own order on the town and the outlaws, forcing a confrontation.

As tensions have built, one of McQuown's crew -- Johnny Gannon (Widmark) -- has grown tired of the killing and decides to take on the role of deputy sheriff. His desire to uphold the law puts him at odds with his old friends but not entirely on the side of Blaisedell, whose authority is primarily backed up by his speed with a gun rather than a statute. Gannon's growing relationship with Lily Dollar (Malone) complicates the entire situation, especially since she has come to Warlock to see Blaisedell killed for gunning down her fiancé. Blaisedell himself is growing closer to townswoman Jessie Marlow (Dolores Michaels) and thinking about settling in Warlock, to the consternation of his partner Morgan.

First known as the psychotic gangster Tommy Udo in 1947's Kiss of Death, Widmark rested on a string of great roles by the time Warlock came around. He was originally cast as Blaisedell, but lobbied studio heads to get Fonda for the part so he could take the against-type role of Johnny Gannon. At first merely disgusted with the violence of McQuown's gang, Gannon gradually grows to understand that the rule of law can in fact make things better -- including a man like him. His belief in it transforms him and instills in him an honor he might have thought was lost, if indeed he ever had it at all. Widmark completely sells the idea of a man who increasingly finds dignity within his work and then, almost as though surprised, within himself.

Fonda's eerie calm renders Blaisedell almost as a kind of automaton. He's on the side of order, no doubt, but it's an order imposed by his will and his willingness to kill rather than statute or any kind of consent of the ordered. In some ways it previews his villainous turn in Once Upon a Time in the West nine years later: he's flat-out evil in that but here is still more than a little scary as a man who knows only his own law and will. As a relationship develops with Jessie Marlow, Blaisedell begins to think he can settle down himself, despite the opposition of Morgan. That opposition, combined with an almost doglike devotion to the first man to overlook his handicap, pushes Morgan to try to manipulate events so that Blaisedell defeats not only McQuown but also Gannon.

It's a fascinating swirl of humanity, made even more so as we see the two women in the story grow closer to the two different men. Gannon and Blaisedell both seem to grow as the relationships develop, but events will prove which, if either, actually becomes a different man than he has been.

Although the scenery is classic -- a dusty town, a steely-eyed lawman, a cruel villain and a gal with a heart of gold -- the screenplay, direction and performances open up wide ranges of human experience to exploration and discussion. Warlock is as stylized as any Western when it comes to the real-world history of its time and place. But it shows that when talent, intelligence and craft are brought to bear on the human condition, the genre of the vehicle is no obstacle to quality and insight.