RANCHO NOTORIOUS (68)

Directed by: Fritz Lang (1952))

Starring: Marlene Dietrich, Arthur Kennedy, Mel Ferrer, Jack Elam

The Pitch: A cowboy seeking revenge for his girlfriend's murder follows the killer to a hideout for bandits run by a saloon singer - except he doesn't know the identity of the man he's pursuing.

Theo Sez: Odd, unpredictable Western, like a milder JOHNNY GUITAR with a side-order of daffy humour. A tale of "hate, murder and revenge", as the theme-song puts it - a noble quest to avenge the memory of a dead love - except that the quest gradually gets derailed, and Kennedy's intense performance starts to look almost like deliberate self-parody (ditto the aforementioned theme-song, a portentous HIGH NOON-style ballad that quite literally describes the action as it unfolds, repeating the word "Chuck-A-Luck" at regular intervals ; it would only take a tiny bit of tweaking to put it in the background of a Mel Brooks movie). The point is that our hero's mission gradually gets forgotten - he doesn't even notice when his quest is finally accomplished - his moral bearings lost as he gradually goes over to the other side, which is why the film's (apparently) messy structure is actually quite appropriate. The first half (Kennedy's search for the killer) moves in an inexorable line, each clue leading to a flashback that propels the quest forward like a narrative slingshot ; once he gets to the ranch, however (the infamous "Chuck-A-Luck"), the colours get muddier - everything seems to be night-time interiors - and the plot also seems to bog down in a mass of incoclusive twists and turns (just as our hero's moral certainties are muddied by his feelings for Dietrich). Could've been more, certainly - its artificiality is the cheap, painted-backdrops kind, not the bizarre stylistic excess Von Sternberg might've brought it - but it's quite enough, a baroque artefact in luscious Technicolor ; just the sight of Marlene winning a horse-race in a brothel - with the girls as riders and the clients as the horsies - makes it all worthwhile.