This, the last of five Westerns that Anthony Mann made with James Stewart (they also made three non-Westerns together) comes across some fifty years later as a trifle on the bland side with few thrills and a distinct lack of chemistry between Steart and Cathy O'Donnell, the nearest thing to a 'love interest' the screenplay offers. In something of a throwback to the first Mann-Stewart western, Winchester 73, Stewart is after vengeance, this time around he's looking for the man who sold repeating rifles to the Apaches as a consequence of which, Stewart's brother was one of a group of US Cavalrymen who died in a massacre. With Stewart as star, of course, it wasn't really necessary to spend money on co-stars and Arthur Kennedy, an equally fine actor, was largely wasted as the real villain - the screenplay likes to blow smoke in our eyes by portraying Alex Nicol in this role, but whilst he is a bona fide sadist and coward it is Kennedy who is ultimately revealed as a cut-rate Iago to Donald Crisp's Othello. Another fine actress, Aline McMahon is also largely wasted; watchable, certainly, but not memorable.
Review of The Man from Laramie
