The Hanging Tree (1959)

Doc Frail (Gary Cooper) is a doctor that drifts from mining town to mining town, doing Doctor-y stuff. Early on he rescues a petty criminal (Ben Piazza) then coerces the criminal into working for him (under the threat of being revealed). The real meat of the film comes when they rescue to solve remaining victim of a stagecoach robbery, Elizabeth (Maria Schell).

From this point on there’s lots going on – Frail is overly protective of her, isolating her from the rest of the town. Despite (or because of) this, she falls in love with him, but he does not reciprocate. On top of this, Frenchy (Karl Malden), a gold prospector, is lusting after Elizabeth, but not before joining up with her to work a Gold claim she has bought (financed by Frail, although she doesn’t know that).

I am not convinced Frenchy is actually the villain as such – he’s too prone to (attempted) rape to be a hero – but my reading of the character is that he’s probably “simple” and doesn’t really understand rather than actually evil. Gary Cooper’s portrayal of Frail is generally excellent, and he really sets the tone of a man with a dark past who falls in love in spite of his own best efforts, and doesn’t know how to deal with it.

The main weaknesses (in my mind) is the treatment of the doctor early on in the film, where it perhaps goes a little too far to show his “good” nature (treating children without payment, and so forth) as a way of softening what would otherwise be a fairly unlikeable character – it just seems too obvious. The other possible weakness is that the story doesn’t quite feel to tie together into a neat self-contained package in the way that the works of John Ford and Anthony Mann do, for example. (This is something I feel about a lot of Delmer Daves’ films). I’m slightly undecided if this is because of a “messy” script, or just because it’s a complex story with lots going on that doesn’t quite fit into the classic Western storyline mould.

In any case, highly recommended, but for some reason little seen on (UK) TV and not available on (UK) DVD. See it when you can!