Arrow Video: The Tin Star (1957) - Reviewed

Images courtesy of Arrow Video

Anthony Mann was hitting his stride in the 1950s as a singular auteur of the American western, fresh off of his 1954 Jimmy Stewart starring epic The Far Country involving a nuanced portrait of a complicated antihero and doling out contemporary westerns that seemed to send up expectations of the genre conventions.  Going on to direct two more westerns in 1955 with The Last Frontier and The Man from Laramie, Mann briefly shifted over to a military film with the Paramount Pictures produced VistaVision film Strategic Air Command reuniting the director with Jimmy Stewart before following it up with the Mario Lanza starring musical Serenade.  Having worked with the then-new VistaVision high-resolution widescreen 35mm format and having done a few color pictures recently, Mann made a marked return to the western genre with the black-and-white lensed small-town gunslinging sheriff drama The Tin Star now available in a new digitally restored limited edition blu-ray from Arrow Video.

 
Morgan Hickman (Henry Fonda), a chiseled and world-weary bounty hunter, strolls into a small town with the body of outlaw seeking his promised reward payment for the guy’s head dead or alive.  However upon arrival he happens upon a town gripped by fear over the recent death of their local sheriff and hasty installation of Ben Owens (Anthony Perkins), a young newbie unfit for the job while local bully Bart Bogardus (Neville Brand from The Scarface Mob) continues to make unsolicited threats of violent retaliation against the newfound sheriff.  Initially passing through, Morgan a former sheriff himself takes it upon himself to try and teach the inexperienced kid a thing or two about gunslinging while making the acquaintances of local outcasts Nona Mayfield (Betsy Palmer) and her half-Indian son Kip (Michel Ray).  However, sheriff Ben Owens’ role of lawman is put to the test when the McGaffey brothers kill local doctor McCord (John McIntire), rousing up a lynch mob threatening to take the law into their own hands.

 
A visually stunning VistaVision beauty of the American west lensed brilliantly by recurring VistaVision cameramen Loyal Griss who shot everything from Shane to White Christmas and The Ten Commandments and aided by an evocative orchestral score by legendary composer Elmer Bernstein, Anthony Mann’s The Tin Star is an impeccably crafted low budget western seeking again to upend genre expectations.  Featuring nuanced and subtle performances from Henry Fonda as the crusty and cynical bounty hunter and Anthony Perkins in only his fifth film showing enormous promise as the beleaguered youth in over his head in the town’s most unwanted position, the ensemble piece is at once picturesque, vast and intimate primarily driven by the performances.  Neville Brand from Riot in Cell Block 11 makes a formidable antagonist and could stand right alongside the likes of James Cagney, Ernest Borgnine or Edward G. Robinson in terms of screen heavies. 

 
Though Anthony Mann considered the film to be made under too much corporate supervision, many others today rank the lower budgeted western as one of Mann’s finest and most unexpected for how it plays out and the care with which the director gives all the characters including minor supporting ones.  Arrow Video’s release is great, coming with a reversible poster, reversible sleeve art, a booklet featuring original press materials and an interview with composer Elmer Bernstein’s son Peter.  Seeing Henry Fonda in the role of mentoring a youthfully innocent Anthony Perkins in one of his most appealing screen roles is a rare treat even fans of all kinds of westerns including but not limited to spaghetti or osterns will be surprised by.  Straightforward, unpretentious and to the point, this beautiful and understated VistaVision western epic will delight genre fans as well as Mann disciples keen on digesting the renowned director’s illustrious career.

--Andrew Kotwicki