SHANE (1953)

"From now on, when we fight with them, the air is going to be filled with gunsmoke."

Wyoming, sometime after the American Civil War.  A cattle baron, Rufus Ryker (Emile Meyer), isn't happy with the smaller farms and ranches popping up on "his" land.  When the film opens, Shane (Alan Ladd), a gunfighter with a mysterious past (it's almost like he's an ex-gunfighter), is riding his horse past the homestead of one of the new farmers, Van Heflin and wife Jean Arthur.  They talk a little and as Fate would have it, right as he's about to leave...the cattle baron and his men show up and start talking mad shit.  Shane don't take too kindly to them flapping their lips, talkin' shit, so he sticks around as Helfin's peaceful farmhand.  The "peaceful" part last about a week, cause when they ride into town to get some supplies, some of Ryker's men start talkin' shit yet again!  Shane fisticuffs all up in their grills.  After that, Ryker hires a gunslinger (Jack Palance) to take care of things.     

I've seen SHANE a few times over the years and each time I enjoy it.  Strong cast, beautiful camerawork, steady pace...but is it really worthy of all of the extreme praise that it gets?  I, personally, don't think so.  Then again, I find kids in movies to usually be annoying as fuck and the kid in this movie is no exception.  Oh my God, I was hoping a horse would fall on him or something.  The whole movie: "Shaaaaannnneeeee!" over and over.  Vomit.  The scenes without the kid are much better though.  I especially enjoyed Elisha Cook Jr. and Jack Palance.

Not the greatest western ever, but definitely an above average one that deserves to be seen.  Especially by fans of classic westerns.  If you need me, I'll be in my room watching RIO BRAVO.

DETECTIVE STORY (1951)

Based on a popular play of the same name (which from 1949 to 1950 ran for 581 performances on Broadway and featured Ralph Bellamy as the lead actor!  Holy fook!  I bet that was awesome!!!), DETECTIVE STORY tells the story of one day in the life of NYC police Det. Jim McLeod (Kirk Douglas).  Instead of following him around town, the events in DS are completely based around the detective's bullpen at the police station.  That sounds risky, but it's not, because DETECTIVE STORY is riveting from beginning to end.  Mainly thanks to the mature script and the intense performances by the entire cast.  And what a cast!  I just spent the last two hours going through the IMDb profiles of the films cast and crew.  That was a lot of fun.

The film opens with a detective bringing in a shoplifter.  From there, we're introduced the the layout of the police station and the fascinating cast of characters.  As the story moves along, more and more characters walk in and out of the film. There's a number of minor stories, but the main story concerns Detective McLeod and his dogged investigation of abortionist Dr. Karl Schneider (played by George Macready, who you might remember paired off against Douglas again six years later in Kubrick's masterful PATHS OF GLORY).  McLeod might hate Schneider now, but that ain't nothing compared to how much he hates him by the end of the movie! 

All of the "lesser" stories are interesting, but the person that really grabbed my attention was accused burglar Joseph Wiseman.  He might only be suspected of robbing houses, but one thing he's definitely guilty of is stealing scenes in the movie!  Holy shit, every single times he's on camera I couldn't take my eyes off of him!  He was amazing.  I'm not saying that to take away from the rest of the cast, cause everybody was great.  Wiseman just happened to be extra great.

One of the most impressive things about DETECTIVE STORY is the amount of information that's so effortlessly given to the audience.  The filmmakers did an amazing job of keeping multiple things going onscreen for the majority of the film.

By today's standards, DETECTIVE STORY is dated, but it's still a great film that deserves to be seen and admired.  Highly recommended.  Would make a very confusing double-feature with Takashi Miike's DETECTIVE STORY.

Very interesting attention to detail (and maybe even foreshadowing?) at 44:39, when Kirk Douglas goes to ask Joseph Wiseman about the monogrammed dish.