I was at my dad's over the weekend, and one channel was doing an Audie Murphy marathon on Veteran's Day, so here we are. This time around, Murphy plays Clay O'Mara, a railroad surveyor who returns home after his father and brother are murdered by cattle rustlers. He wants to find the killers and "speak" with them, and takes a job as a deputy to have some authority.
His father's lawyer spoke up for him with the sheriff, but the lawyer and the sheriff are the ones responsible. So the sheriff keeps sending him on tasks or leads that are supposed to get him killed, only to be flummoxed when Clay returns. Along the way, he falls for the sheriff's niece (played by Susan Cabot), and there's a perfunctory romance there. You would think the inevitable reveal her uncle was a killer and a crook would hit a little harder, but not really.
But the real interpersonal relationship is between Clay and notable local ne'er-do-well Whitey Kincade (Dan Duryea). The sheriff and lawyer first pointed Clay at Whitey as possibly knowing something, and sent Clay to serve a warrant for a different killing. Whitey doesn't think much of it, but Clay outdraws him and brings him in for trial. Now Whitey's interested.
I think Whitey's supposed to come off as a little unhinged, but watching the movie, there's a certain gay subtext to him. Mostly that everything about his character is more flamboyant than every other guy. Not wildly so, but his clothes look a little nicer, and brighter colors. He does everyday things, like lighting a match, with more flair than anyone else. His voice is a bit higher than I expected when he walks in, and he laughs wildly a lot.
Mostly, it's just how interested he seems to get in Clay. Whitey is found not guilty after the sheriff and lawyer pay another local, more small-time hood to provide an alibi for Kincade at his trial. You could do a whole thing on this movie, just in the weird love/hate, co-dependent relationships all the crooks have in this movie. Needing each other to cover for one another, but none of them trusting each other, or even liking each other much.
After that, Whitey passes up opportunities to kill Clay, even when Clay literally hands him his loaded gun back in a place with no witnesses. When Clay shows up later looking for a stolen horse, Whitey leads him right to the guys who took him (the leader of the thieves played by Jack Elam), then covers his back until Clay gets a certain distance away.
Then he lets the three guys chase after Clay and follows along to enjoy the show, but there's no hostility to it. It's like Whitey is just really entertained by this weird young man that is fast on the draw, but doesn't kill anyone, who is willing to play nice with a killer like Whitey if the law says he's innocent. Heck, Whitey even brings him a lunchpail at one point when he thinks Clay's still recovering from being wounded retrieving the horse. It's him that tells Cabot her former fiance and uncle are crooks and killers, and he's the one who saves Clay's life. He even sacrifices himself by stopping Clay from stepping outside into an ambush by keeping him at gunpoint and going out first. It just really feels as though Whitey fell in love with Clay.
2 comments:
This caused me to look up, in confusion, how an odd-seeming 5'5" person like Audie Murphy became a movie star.
The answer surprised me severely.
You mean the thing about being a war hero, then starring in a movie about his life? Yeah, it's kind of wild. I actually think I learned about it from some dialogue in a G.I. Joe comic I read sometime back in the '90s. Or else my dad mentioned it at some point.
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