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The Ox-Bow Incident
(1943)
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Two drifters are passing through a Western town, when news comes in that a local farmer has been murdered and his cattle stolen. The townspeople, joined by the drifters, form a posse to catch the perpetrators. They find three men in possession of the cattle, and are determined to see justice done on the spot. |
This celebrated indictment of lynching remains a brave and unorthodox piece of film-making, based on the novel by Walter Van Tilburg Clark and pushed through the studio system by director William A Wellman as a personal project. It is a western only in setting (the exteriors are largely created on studio sound stages) and its grim tale lacks any heroes — Henry Fonda and Henry “Harry” Morgan are passing cattlemen who observe rather than intervene. The lynch mob mentality is tellingly explored but the letter so beautifully read out by Fonda is far too literate and philosophical to be the last testament of a humble cowboy.
Halliwell's Film Guide
Stark lynch law parable, beautifully made but very depressing.
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