The Law and Jake Wade
by John Sturges
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DVD details
Actor: Henry Silva, Patricia Owens, Richard Widmark, Robert Middleton, Robert TaylorDirector: John Sturges
Brand: Warner Brothers
Writer: Marvin H. Albert
Writer: William Bowers
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language)
Format: DVD, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 86 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2008-08-26
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: Warner Home Video
DVD Reviews of The Law and Jake Wade
DVD Review: Seriously underseen and underrated western packs a lot into 86 minutes
Summary: 4 Stars
John Sturges' 1958 THE LAW AND JAKE WADE offers plenty of star power in the presences of Robert Taylor in the title role and Richard Widmark as his nemesis Clint Hollister, truly stunning Cinemascope color photography by Robert Surtees, a solid and literate screenplay by William Bowers (from a novel by Marvin H. Albert), and a wonderful supporting cast that includes Henry Silva and DeForest Kelley in typical if very nicely played henchmen roles. Sturges puts it all together with zest and economy, punching out a compelling story of a reformed bad guy (Wade) having to deal with his past while protecting his fiancee as best he can, all in a very speedy 86 minutes.
The film opens with some lovely shots of the Alabama Hills in California, location for a great many of the most famous westerns of this period including most of the Randolph Scott/Budd Boetticher films which were made at exactly the same time. A lone man on horseback, the usual beginning...it soon turns out to be Wade, who has come to break bandit Hollister out of jail. But Wade and Hollister are no longer friends, and Wade leaves the man a horse but no gun in the middle of the mountains, each man more or less promising to kill the other if they come in contact again. We don't have much more than an hour to go in this taut piece of work, so that'll be soon; shortly after we find out that Wade is actually a marshall in another town, Hollister and his gang come looking for him, and in equally short order they've kidnaped Wade and his fiancee Peggy (Patricia Owens) and are forcing them to lead the outlaws to a fortune in stolen gold.
The bulk of the film is this journey, with the five bandits trying to push Wade into leading them to the money through threats and intimidation against him and Peggy, with Hollister having to keep the younger and less disciplined members of the gang (especially Silva's psychopathic Rennie and Kelley's vengeful Wexler) in check time and again - and having to watch out for the tricky Wade's escape attempts. Eventually the group winds up in a ghost town, but due to some less-than-intelligent gunplay they've attracted the attention of some local Comanches, and so the recovery of the gold will prove to be more complex than it should have been. The ultimate showdown is kept until almost the last moment, by which point the odds aren't what they were at the beginning of the film.
Sturges made more than a dozen westerns, many of them fairly large-scale and prestige productions, over more than 30 years, and why this one isn't among his better-known films is a mystery to me. I guess it lacks the obvious gloss and macho overload of THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN, and it's not based on a famous story like GUNFIGHT AT THE O.K. CORRAL or HOUR OF THE GUN; but still it strikes me as a film that should be better known. There's a goodly amount of action (Sturges' real forte) for such a short film, and the characters are well-defined enough by the screenplay that he doesn't have to do much to keep them interesting. Romantic complexities weren't the director's strong point, and here he's got a faithful woman who stands by her man but doesn't get in the way of the action or the real story - the history between Wade and Hollister; and Widmark and Taylor although playing pretty much to type are both excellent as the friends-turned-adversaries, and their backstory is painted in just enough detail to be believable and involving.
Really, it's hard to find any serious flaws at all in the thing; perhaps the score (there's no composer credited, so presumably it's all stock music) is a little ordinary but that's about the only "problem" that comes to me. So I guess it really comes down to it not standing out enough amongs the dozens of great westerns of the period. In any case, this strikes me as probably the best of the 8 Sturges westerns I've seen, and while not quite a masterpiece it definitely falls into the must-see category for any serious western aficionado I think. The DVD doesn't have any extras, but it's a nice enough widescreen transfer.
Description of The Law and Jake Wade
Western involving an outlaw who forces his reformed co-hort to lead him to some buried loot.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: WESTERN/CLASSICS Rating: NR UPC: 883929005093 Manufacturer No: 1000036298Bestsellers in DVD
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