La vallée de la vengeance

"Vengeance Valley" (1951) is not just a great title for a western, but a well-made, intelligent feature that should please Burt Lancaster and Robert Walker fans. A cattle baron (Ray Collins) takes in an orphaned boy (Owen Daybright) and raises him. His own son (Lee Strobie) is about the same age. Although Lee resents Owen they generally get along and share a lot of coming of age adventures on the ranch. But as they mature Lee's (Robert Walker) resentment causes him to become a slacker and the classic prodigal son. After a long absence he returns with a wife, appears to have cleaned up his act, and reconciles with his father.

But Lee's past includes a girl named Lily that he got pregnant. Owen covers for him, but this causes Lee to resent his stepbrother even more. When he suspects that his father's ranch and his new wife are slipping away from him, he sets up Owen to be killed by Lily's two brothers. Although this prodigal son-Cain and Abel stuff is hardly original, the two stars are excellent in their respective parts. Lancaster reins in his excesses and gives a nice controlled performance, with his suppressed energy just visible enough to give Owen a nice dimensionality.

Walker in convincing as a two-faced villain, still motivated by childhood jealousy but able to conceal it from everyone but the audience. Walker is relatively forgotten today, but was the 1940's version of James Dean; although his looks and style are more like a young Robert Vaughn.

When not occupied with its melodramatic story, "Vengeance Valley" has the look of an extremely well-produced documentary, going into great detail about the process of a spring roundup and providing a lot of very scenic backgrounds. A ranch hand named Hewie (Carleton Carpenter) provides an informative voice-over. The film features some great cattle scenes, a lot of good riding sequences, and a couple well staged fights. Watch for an early appearance by young Hugh O'Brian-just a few years away from starring in television's "The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp".

Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.

Lavish MGM was not a studio for Westerns. That king of studios excelled at big-budget, star-studded drawing-room dramas. On the other hand, Westerns tend to do better with small casts, tight stories, and good outdoor locations. Nonetheless, this MGM Western is generally underrated. On the plus side, is a fine male cast among the supporting players (Collins, Wright, Ireland, de Corsia, Carpenter {surprisingly},and Jim Hayward as the sheriff), some striking Colorado locations, and good attention to detail (note how injured persons do not quickly recover, and how the trail drive is treated in realistic detail). My guess is that the producers were following up on the success of Red River (1948), with another trail-drive Western, but without the latter's notable dramatic tensions.

Several factors work against Vengeance Valley. One is that critical lack of tension. The scenes don't really build to a dramatic conclusion, but simply follow one another in rather slack style. That results in a final showdown between Lancaster and Walker lacking the impact it should have given their family history together. Crucially, Director Thorpe adds nothing to the screenplay, and most importantly, adds nothing to Lancaster's performance which lacks the kind of shading that would normally build tension. I don't know whether to fault Thorpe or Lancaster for that one-note performance. But, unlike Wayne's character in Red River, Lancaster's Owen Daybright comes across as a rather dull and uninvolving character. He doesn't even seem angry or anguished during the showdown. Then there's Joanne Dru who appears unengaged with her part as Walker's wife. Many ambitious Hollywood actresses viewed the male-dominated Western as a come down, but whatever the reason, her scenes come across as emotionally flat, at best.

On the other hand, the screenplay is both well developed and unusual for its day. Wedlock babies simply didn't turn up in movies during that Production Code era. Here, Forrest's fatherless baby sets off the chain of events leading to the climax, and also provides unusual motivation for the bad guys. There's also the terrific Colorado locations and trail herds big enough to be believed. Clearly the studio put real money into the project. Too bad they didn't hire a more inspired director. With better guidance, Vengeance Valley had the potential to be a memorably epic Western. Even as things stand, the movie remains highly watchable and generally underrated.

A wealthy ranch man has a son ;his wife died a long time ago and the boy ,now married to Jen ,gets Lily pregnant.And he's got an ominous plan about his father's valuable properties.Bad boy indeed.Fortunately ,there's another "son" Owen (Daybright,what a surname!),or a boy the old man treats like a son.Robert Walker plays the villain as he did in Hitchcock's thriller "strangers on a train" while Burt Lancaster is the nice guy,who can even take the blame for what his pal did.

The bad boy/ anxious father subject was much better applied on Anthony Mann's "Man from Laramie" in 1955,but Burt Lancaster makes this ho -hum western watchable.Pointless voice over.

The movie concerns about a cattle baron (Ray Collins) who takes a foreman named Owen (Burt Lancaster) as his own son , originating in the legitimate one named Lee (Rober Walker) an enormous resentment for the adopted brother . An illegitimate child of Lee and Lily (Sally Forrest) creates more problems when the brothers (John Ireland , Hugh O'Brian) from her , along with a mean gunslinger (Ted De Corsia) are looking for revenge . Lee married to Jean (Joanne Dru) is seeing an opportunity to obtain his father's cattle.

The movie is a good western with extraordinary landscapes that were shot on location in natural parks of Montana and Arizona territory . The picture has western action , drama , round-up , horseman pursuits and results to be quite entertaining . It carries a surprising feeling of authenticity for a Western of this M.G.M.'s classic period . Serious Western by Richard Thorpe and with Burt Lancaster as a foreman trying to live a pacific existence . The picture is produced in enough budget by Metro Goldwyn Mayer where director Richard Thorpe spent 33 years in the same studio and he was to become the longest-servicing filmmaker in their story . In time Thorpe became known as the studio's ¨one take¨ because of his rapid shooting schedules . It's the first Burt Lancaster's Western and , as always , he plays a honest and upright character , similar he subsequently played in ¨Unforgiven¨ (by John Huston). Robert Walker is fine in his last film because being early deceased at thirty two years old , he's specially known for ¨Strangers on the train¨ (Alfred Hitchcock). George Folsey's cinematography is glimmer and colorful like is well reflected on the breathtaking and spellbound outdoors ; however the photography is a little worn-out . In fact , this is one of a handful of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer productions of the 1950-1951 period whose original copyrights were never renewed and are now apparently in Public Domain , meaning that virtually anyone could duplicate and sell a VHS/DVD copy of the film . Therefore, many of the versions of this film available on the market are either severely and usually badly edited and/or of extremely poor quality, having been duped from second or third-generation or more copies of the film . Splendid art direction by Cedric Gibbons from Metro Goldwyn Mayer (film producer) , he's the greatest production designer by that time .

The movie attained lukewarm reception by the public , it achieved a limited success ; however a similar film titled ¨Red River¨ (by Howard Hawks), also with the same protagonist , the attractive Joanne Dru , was much better as reviews as box office . The motion picture was professionally directed by Richard Thorpe . He directed lesser Western and thrillers when he moved into features in 1924 and did little of note before joining MGM in 1935 . Thorpe made routine studio fare until 1950s when he was given more major assignment . He then made various big-budget productions financed by Pando S Bergman among his best known films are all the MGM Tarzans following his arrival at the studio in 1935 and a series of swashbuckling adventures in the early 1950s featuring Robert Taylor , the most successful of these were three swashbucklers made in England as ¨Knights of Round Table¨ , ¨Ivanhoe¨ and ¨Quentin Durward¨ . Thorpe was an expert on all kind of genres as Western as ¨Wild horse¨ , ¨Under Montana skies¨ and ¨Last challenge¨ but his specialty resulted to be adventures as ¨Prisoner of Zenda¨, ¨The prodigal¨ , ¨Challenge to Lassie¨ , ¨Malaya¨ , ¨Tarzan's secret treasure¨ , ¨Tarzan escapes¨ , ¨Tarzan finds a son¨ and Musicals as ¨Fun in Acapulco¨ , ¨Rainbow over Broadway¨ , ¨The prince student¨ and his biggest money-maker to date was ¨The great Caruso¨ and his last big box-office hit was ¨Presley' Jailhouse Rock¨ . He also worked briefly in television before retiring in 1968 , his last film was a Western : ¨The last challenge¨, also titled ¨The Pistolero of Red River ¨. The motion picture will appeal to Burt Lancaster fans and western genre enthusiasts .

Robert Walker plays Lee Strobie, a sleazy greedy son gone bad. His adopted brother Owen Daybright (Burt Lancaster) is always covering for him. Strobie gets Lily Faskin (Sally Forrest) pregnant and Lily's brothers (John Ireland & Hugh O'Brien) come gunning for Daybright since they found out he was the one who paid money to Lily for her trouble. They think Owen is the father when in fact it was Lee who got Lily pregnant in the first place. Lee also tries to hide this fact from his wife Jen (Joanne Dru) but she finds out about it, anyway.

Sound convoluted enough? Well it actually it works. This is an 'adult' western, not your average B programmer.

There's little gunplay except at the end when the Faskin brothers try to ambush and kill Owen during a cattle drive. Lee gallops away leaving Owen at the mercy of the Faskins. It's only then that Owen realizes Lee was in on this ambush too because he wants Owen dead so he can have the ranch all to himself.

The other ranch hands come to Owen's rescue and kill the Faskins, leaving Owen free to pursue Lee to the river where the inevitable showdown occurs. If you want to see what happens next, see the movie.

I love the scenery in this one. It's beautiful. Looks like Colorado but I could be mistaken and the IMDb doesn't give the location. I'd love to go out there, though.

It seems this MGM western is in the public domain since there are a lot of bootleg DVDs of it out there of mediocre quality. I saw it on TCM and it looks like it could use a remastering job since the Technicolor is all washed out and the sound fades out at times.

Unlike some of the viewers below, I liked it since it had a slightly sleazy element to the story. May even be worth getting on DVD if Turner ever decides to release an official version.

7 out of 10