BY JOHN M. WHALEN
Today on Coronavirus Playhouse, as we remained locked
down in our houses watching DVDs and Blu-Rays, we have an interesting, if a bit
unsettling, feature from Universal Studios, called “Canyon Passage†(1946). Dana
Andrews, Brian Donlevy, and Susan Hayward star in a movie about mid-nineteenth-century
life in a small community on the western frontier. Director Jacques Tourneur
(Cat People, I Walk with a Zombie, Out of the Past) does the opposite of what
John Ford did with this kind of film. Ford’s westerns showed a community that
clung together and fought against the dangers of the wilderness and the hostile
elements it contained. Tourneur, always a subversive filmmaker, shows us that a
community can not only be warped by the environment in which it exists, it can
collapse just as easily from within as without.
The film has a complicated plot for a western. The
central dilemma involves two men in love with the same woman. One of the men,
Logan Stuart (Dana Andrews), is a straight up sort of guy trying to run a
freight company between the gold-mining town of Jacksonville and Portland,
Oregon. He’s partners with George Camrose (Brian Donlevy), a likable guy who’s
in charge of keeping the miner’s gold pokes locked in a safe, but who
unfortunately, has a gambling addiction problem. He’s been stealing the miners’
gold dust to gamble. George is engaged to be married to Lucy Overmire (Susan
Hayward), but it’s apparent early on that she may think Logan is the better
catch. Both men are aware of the problem, but both know Logan is too honorable
a guy to make a play for Lucy.
The romantic triangle plays out against the background of
a community that’s also a bit out of kilter. Screenwriter Ernest Pascal, who
adapted the screenplay from an Ernest Haycock novel, sets the scene early on,
when Logan visits Portland’s assayer’s office and trades some gold dust for
specie. The assayer comments on the danger of carrying around that much gold.
“Gold is only yellow gravel, Cornelius,†Logan tells him. To which Cornelius
replies: “But the yellow color makes all the difference.†Logan observes that
“a man can choose his own gods. What are your gods?â€
Logan’s next stop is the hotel where he finds Lucy
Overmire, George’s fiancé. George was supposed to take her back to
Jacksonville, but had to go somewhere else on business and asked Logan to bring
her. Logan tells her to be ready early for their long ride to Jacksonville.
Logan goes to his room and is awakened in the middle of the night by an
intruder who tries to steal his saddlebag full of gold coin. Logan manages to fight
him off with the intruder crashing through the hotel window and escaping into
the rainy night. Logan suspects the robber was a man named Honey Bragg (Ward
Bond), a hulking bully, whom Logan believes earlier killed two miners for their
gold. When he reveals his suspicions to Lucy, she asks why he doesn’t press
murder charges, and he replies that he didn’t see him do it, and wouldn’t want
to make a mistake like that. “Things have to be dead even with you.†she says.
“Is that it, Logan?â€
Before they get back to Jacksonville, Logan and Lucy stop
at Ben Dance’s (Andy Devine) place, where Logan’s presumed love interest
Caroline Marsh (Patricia Roc) is staying. Lucy notices there seems to be little
chemistry between Logan and Caroline, but she plays it cool. In Jacksonville,
we meet the rest of the players, including Johnny Steele (Lloyd Bridges) a
young troublemaker who’s usually trying to stir something up. He knows there’s
resentment between Logan and Bragg and tells him to go up to the saloon and
have it out with him. Logan declines the invitation for now and we next meet
perhaps the most interesting pair of characters in the whole film— Jack Lestrade
(Onslow Stevens), a professional gambler to whom George has lost a lot of money,
and his wife Marta (Rose Hobart), who keeps track of George’s IOUs. Both the
gambler and his wife are dark figures, dressed in black, and shot by
cinematographer Edward Cronjager in deep shadows. Lestrade has what I think is the
most significant line of dialogue in the movie. In a conversation with George
about Honey Bragg, Lestrade says he considers Bragg a friend.
George:
You have strange friends, Jack.
Lestrade:
I didn’t say that I like him or trust him.
George:
What’s your idea of a friend?
Lestrade:
Any man, I suppose, who believes as I do that the human race is a horrible
mistake.
Lestrade becomes a pivotal figure as the fault lines in
the community of Jacksonville start to come apart. It appears that the men in
town are not so much interested in justice being served when it comes to Honey
Bragg, as they are anxious to see a good fight. At Johnny Steel’s goading,
Logan and Honey finally have a dandy of a knockdown, drag out fight in the
saloon. When it’s over, although Logan has clearly won, neither feels
victorious, with Honey calling the onlookers “Yellow Dogs†as he stomps out of
town. Further complications arise when Logan tells Lestrade he wants the money
back that George lost by the time he gets back from another trip to Portland. Lestrade
then enlists Bragg’s help in getting rid of Logan. When an attempted
assassination fails, Honey rides off in a rage into the forest where he
encounters and murders an Indian girl swimming in a stream.
Meanwhile miner Mack McIver (Wallace Scott), returns to
Jacksonville after a trip to Portland, and tells George he wants to pick up his
sack of gold in the morning. That presents a problem, since George has been
taking dust from his poke to pay his IOUs to Lestrade. When McIver is found
dead in the morning, the town turns on George, especially after Hi Linnet
(Hoagy Carmichael) tells a makeshift court that he saw George take the gold
dust when he just happened to peep into his office window. (I said this was
complicated. You not only have two guys in love with Susan Hayward, a
giant-sized bully named Honey who’s killing and robbing whites and Indians
alike, a town full of bad-tempered gold miners, you’ve also got Hoagy
Carmichael as a guy who owns a small trading post but who mostly goes around
town on his mule strumming a mandolin, singing “Old Buttermilk Sky†while he’s
peeping in peoples’ windows!). And did I mention that the local tribe of
Indians, who’ve gotten pretty darn tired of these white men calling them “red
beasties†and building cabins on their land, are on the warpath because of the
girl that Honey Bragg killed.
This complex web of interconnecting plot lines all leads
to a dramatic conclusion, in the middle of which Logan risks his own life
trying to save George from being lynched by the bloodthirsty miners. The chaos
which envelopes Jacksonville makes Lestrade’s estimation of the human race seem
fairly accurate. But Clenchfield (Halliwell Hobbes), an old man who works in
Logan’s store, tells Logan he shouldn’t stick his neck out for George. He could
get himself killed.
“No man has to go against reason, he says.
“Reason? Is that what makes a man hungry? Does it make
him fight? Does reason make him stand by a friend?â€
“What does then?†Clenchfield asks.
“Something deeper than reason.â€
So in its own unobtrusive, “Canyon Passage†is asking
this question: Is mankind merely some kind of horrible mistake, as Lestrade
claimed? Can civilization crumble and fall victim to the dark forces of the
wilderness? Or is there something deeper that will ultimately save the human
race? It’s quite a thesis for a simple Technicolor western.
Kino Lorber did a fine job transferring “Canyon Passageâ€
to Blu-ray. It has a 1.37:1 aspect ratio, which is slighter wider than the
usual 1.33:1, giving Cronjager’s Technicolor photography of the area around
Crater Lake, Oregon. plenty of space on the screen. Past reviews of earlier
releases of the film raved about the vivid color. I found KL’s Blu-Ray had good
color but somewhat toned down. And while the picture is very good, it’s
obviously not a restoration, which should be considered for the future. As an
extra, KL provides audio commentary by film historian Toby Roan. As usual Roan
presents a litany of biographical detail on just about every actor, crew member
and costume designer involved in the film. It’s informative but lacks any
critical insight into what’s happening on the screen.
The only other extras are the theatrical trailers for
“Canyon Passage†and half a dozen other movies that are available on disc from
Kino Lorber Studio Classics. All in all, “Canyon Passage†is highly
recommended, especially now as we are all locked down in our own communities
waiting for the return to normal life, reminding ourselves we are all in this
together.
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John M. Whalen is the author of "Tragon of Ramura". Click here to order from Amazon.