Enjoyed this the second time around.
Good story line and interest is maintained
Posts from ethanedwards in thread „Yellow Sky (1948)“
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Yellow Sky, good movie good cast. Gregory Peck, Anne Baxter, Richard Widmark, John Russell, Harry Morgan. I've seen a couple of times. Got a great ending.
Yep, made sure I watched
Yellow Sky
again.Watch the full movie on the thread
Tedious and slow to start with, with very little action,
but eventually it gets going, and as you say, great ending -
Yellow Sky (1948) is an American western film directed by William A. Wellman.
The story is believed to be loosely adapted from William Shakespeare's The Tempest.
A band of outlaws flee after a bank robbery and encounter an old man
and his granddaughter in a ghost town.Look out for Jay 'Tonto' Silverheels,
and Duke 'Pal'
Hank Worden as a Rancher, Bank Customer (uncredited)User Review
QuoteStay away from my men, and stop swinging those damn hips all over the place.
25 September 2008 | by JohnRouseMerriottChard (United Kingdom)Stretch is the leader of bank robbing desperadoes, after their latest job they find the US Cavalry hot on their tail. Their only conceivable route of escape is to traipse over an enormous salt flat, low on water and bitten by the scorching sun, they happen to come across a ghost town named Yellow Sky. Here was once a prosperous town, now the only inhabitants are a crusty old prospector and his tomboy granddaughter. Soon the talk turns to hidden gold and it's not long before these desperate men will become conflicted in more ways than one. Be it greed, lust or the Apache, the day of reckoning is coming to Yellow Sky.
Yellow Sky is a technically stunning picture, directed with panache by William A. Welman, boasting starkly affecting black and white photography from Joseph MacDonald, and utilising the wonderful use of natural sounds. This picture is to me one of the shining lights of 1940s Westerns. Once the pulse racing pursuit of the robbers by the US Cavalry has finished, the film shifts into a master class of visual and dialogue driven delights. As the gang trundle across the desolate salt flat, the need for quenching the thirst hits the audience as much as it does the gang; I myself found that I was swigging rapidly from my cold can of beer! The Alabama Hills location is a sprawling, beautiful, never ending ode to the West, and then the actors kick in and do their stuff, and then some.
Gregory Peck plays the leader Stretch, an actor normally associated with a straight laced gait, here he is is weather worn and tired, his portrayal of Stretch as convincing as a role I have seen him tackle. Richard Widmark, in what I believe to be his first Western entry, is truly magnetic, a smirking, snarling Dude that you just know you couldn't trust if your life depended on it. Anne Baxter plays the sole female character of the piece {Mike}, and she is pivotal to the whole films strength, tough and full of spunk, her grasping of the situation in amongst these ragged men gives the piece it's time bomb ethic, and boy does Baxter do well with it.
All told there's no weakness' in the casting, they all do good work, and although the plot structure of the film is nothing out of the ordinary, the technical aspects coupled with the excellent writing on the page (W.R. Burnett story, Lamar Trotti screenplay) lift it way above many of its contemporaries. The ending has caused some consternation amongst Western critics over the years, and if I'm honest then it's not totally satisfactory to me personally, but it is in no way what so ever a bad ending, you just feel that the mood that had preceded it deserved something better. But as ever, it's up to the individual viewer to decide for themselves. 9/10
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YELLOW SKY
DIRECTED BY WILLIAM A. WELLMAN
PRODUCED BY LAMAR TROTTI
TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX FILM CORPORATIONInformation from IMDb
Plot Summary
A band of bank robbers on the run from a posse flee into the desert.
Near death from lack of water they stumble into what appears to be a ghost town,
only to discover an old prospector and his granddaughter living there.
The robbers discover that the old man has been mining gold
and set out to make a quick fortune by robbing the pair.
Their plan runs foul when the gang leader,
Stretch, falls for the granddaughter, which sets off a showdown between the entire gang.
Written by E.W. DesMaraisFull Cast
Gregory Peck ... James 'Stretch' Dawson
Anne Baxter ... Constance Mae 'Mike'
Richard Widmark ... Dude
Robert Arthur ... Bull Run
John Russell ... Lengthy
Harry Morgan ... Half Pint (as Henry Morgan)
James Barton ... Grandpa
Charles Kemper ... Walrus
Robert Adler ... Jed (uncredited)
Ray Beltram ... Indian (uncredited)
Harry Carter ... Cavalry Lieutenant (uncredited)
William Gould ... Banker (uncredited)
Eula Guy ... Woman Bank Customer (uncredited)
Paul Hurst ... Drunk (uncredited)
Victor Kilian ... Bartender (uncredited)
Norman Leavitt ... Bank Teller (uncredited)
Jay Silverheels ... Indian (uncredited)
José Sáenz ... Indian (uncredited)
Norm Taylor ... Indian (uncredited)
William Wellman Jr. ... Boy in Hayloft (scenes deleted) (uncredited)
Hank Worden ... Rancher, Bank Customer (uncredited)
Chief Yowlachie ... Colorado (uncredited)Writing Credits
Lamar Trotti (screenplay)
W.R. Burnett (story)Original Music
Alfred NewmanCinematography
Joseph MacDonaldTrivia
Gregory Peck initially felt he was miscast as the bank robber."Screen Director's Playhouse" broadcast a 30 minute radio adaptation of the movie on July 15, 1949 with Gregory Peck reprising his film role. It was directed by William A. Wellman
Jean Peters refused the female lead, calling the role 'too sexy'
Goofs
Story is set in 1867, according to the opening scene, yet all handguns in the movie
are 1873 Colt Peacemakers.Continuity
Just before beginning to cross the salt flats after the bank robbery,
Dude pulls his saddle stirrup out to jump into it, but misses.
In the next shot he successfully mounts the horse.During final confrontation with Dude, Stretch's shirt changes color.
Filming Locations
Alabama Hills, Lone Pine, California, USA
Death Valley National Park, California, USA
Owens Lake, California, USA