Mares de arena

We have been seeing this on the TV Westerns channel. It's a very film noir western. Beside the always sturdy and moral Randolph Scott, there were two special delights. Ella Raines is my long favorite among the older actresses, with her bright eyes and rather sarcastic manner always seeming to be laughing at some private joke. I feel a personal connection to her in that she was born a month after my father and followed him by a month in death. She first captured my fascination in "The Suspect" with Charles Laughton and then in "The Strange Affair of Uncle Harry" with George Sanders. Josh White is the really special feature here. How often do you find such wonderfully played Delta Blues inexplicably inserted into the plot of a 1949 western? It's not a truly great movie but still a must-see because it is so ahead of it's time. "Bad Day at Black Rock" meets "O Brother Where Art Thou."