Note: In addition to film noir, Raymore Burr appeared in several Westerns before Perry Mason. Some notable Westerns he acted in include Station West (1948). He also appeared in Count Three and Pray as a villainous storekeeper that ran the town, like Flem Snopes in The Hamlet. He auditioned for the lead role of U.S. Marshal Matt Dillon for the Gunsmoke television series in 1955. However, CBS producers felt he was not the right "John Wayne type" they were seeking and passed on him, a role that ultimately went to James Arness.
Horizons
West
1952 / 1:21
Tagline: “LAWLESS RUTHLESS DEFIANCE!”
[internet archive]
Two Confederate brothers return to Austin after the war, hoping the family ranch can soothe old wounds. Robert Ryan, all restless energy, chafes at peace; Rock Hudson, sunny and idealistic, sees silver linings. Their father expects Ryan to stay home out of love of ranching but it is impossible for him, bored by peace, to return to the old life in the sticks.
A natural leader, Ryan is drawn to Austin to make money and garner power. Is Ryan driven by bitterness over defeat - or by the rot of a cause built on slavery? Either way, he scorns simple pleasures: good food, honest work, neighborly respect. When asked if he could work with Northerners, Ryan replies, “I could forget grudges for enough money.”
Raymond Burr oozes menace as Cort Hardin - a northern dandy with a gambler’s nerve and a sadist’s streak. Even at the card table, he’s all chill steel. From his first scene, movie-goers know that he’s going to be excellent as a bad dandy, northern and cold-hearted, rich and spoiled. While Ryan seems to portray the type of normal guy who’s wrestling with PTSD or unresolved bitterness over defeat, Burr doesn’t have the default settings of a man of flesh and blood, since even when he is gambling, he is unsmiling and brusque. His brutality peaks in a belt-buckle thrashing and predatory embraces that leave Julie Adams wiping her lips in disgust. Jealous, insecure and alert, he notices right away that his unhappy wife is attracted to Ryan.
Ryan borrows $1,000 to take Burr in poker, loses big, and sinks into debt. To claw back, he recruits war’s leftovers for a cattle-rustling scheme, selling stolen stock to a Mexican general decked out like a parade float. Taking exception to being robbed, Burr tortures Rock Hudson to gather information on the rustling.
Per the traditional noir trope, Ryan loses his soul in short order. Momentum drags Ryan from rustling to bribery, arson, and street murder. Pity and mercy shrivel; ambition hardens, observes crony Jim Arness. In an explanation so terse as to be frustrating, Ryan admits that he yokes cruelty and ambition, with his only goals in life to build an empire and make Julie Adams the great lady of Texas.
The magnificent Technicolor is the reason to see this movie. Outside is stunning, interiors are lush. The clothes have a wide variety of colors. But the human beings Ryan, Burr and Adams are all strong in their parts. A notorious tough guy, Robert Ryan looks at Raymond Burr with so much contempt that Burr’s character seems to wilt and get even doughier. Julie Adams’s solid performance balances the fact that her motivation for falling for Ryan like a ton of bricks is not made clear at all though we movie-goers know that Hollywood seldom explains love at first sight, especially in westerns. Not given much to do except scold and hector Ryan, Rock Hudson looks rather like a lightweight in this movie as if he were a pop idol cast in a movie to attract the youth audience.
As for the connection with the classic Perry Mason TV series, Julie Adams was the strung-out wife in TCOT Lover's Leap (great is her turn on the stand, blitzed on what in my youth we called Christmas Trees). She played the kindly if intense mom in TCOT Missing Button. She was convicted in error in TCOT Deadly Verdict (a most Hitchcockian outing) and was the patsy again in TCOT Fatal Fortune.
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