gary cooper near the end of his career and lee j. cobb (with a special dustin hoffman like performance by arthur o'connell). gary cooper is a baal teshuva, who once was an outlaw. he travels by train (bound for fort worth, where he never arrives) to hire a school teacher for his little town (which he refers to by two names; one of which is good hope). he is carrying money for a year's wages for a teacher and while on the train he says this in too loud a voice. a train robbery is attempted and foiled, but cooper, julie london (a former schoolteacher and a present tense barroom singer) and o'connell have fallen off the train. they need shelter to survive the cold night and cooper leads them to the home of his former gang, led by lee j. cobb, with a prominent member- jack lord. he had left lee j. cobb in the lurch many years ago and he was lee's finest pupil and lee felt betrayed. jack lord forces julie london to do a striptease, despite gary's assertion that julie is his "girl". this creates friction and jack lord and o'connell end up dead in the ensuing fracas. they are supposed to rob a bank in lassoo and lee sends gary and one other up ahead. in fact lassoo is a ghost town (cooper to lee in climax scene: "it's a ghost town and you're a ghost. your day is over.") gary kills the guy who accompanies him and two others who are sent after him. he returns and finds that julie london has been impurified. he kills lee j. cobb and rides off with julie london. (julie knows that gary's married and they have no future, but she has at least tasted love and she wouldn't change anything for the world.)
B- the story, good but not great. cooper a bit too old for the role. always great to see lee j. cobb, even in heavy makeup.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment