Buchanan Rides Alone

Manuel Rojas and Randolph Scott attend a necktie party

Budd Boetticher's Buchanan Rides Alone, from 1958, is a pivotal film within the Ranown Westerns, the five B oaters that marked the collaboration between producer Harry Joe Brown, director Boetticher, and star Randolph Scott. The films are all revenge potboilers that don't exceed eighty minutes, yet they contain a multitude of great characterizations and portraits of the many grey shades of villainy and heroism. Randolph Scott plays, of course, Buchanan who rides into the border town of Agry at the beginning of the film and departs the burg for Texas at film's end. Agry is controlled by the family of fat cats which includes the corpulent and bloviating Sheriff, Lew Agry (Barry Kelley), Amos Agry (Peter Whitney) who runs the hotel and resembles Tweedledee, and the big boss, Judge Simon Agry (Tol Avery). Buchanan soon cottons to the crooked nature of Agry, but runs into trouble before he can hit the road. 

Buchanan runs afoul of the Agry's by defending a Mexican youth named Juan de la Vega (Manuel Rojas) who he sees being beaten by the sheriff and his deputies. Unbeknownst to Buchanan, Juan has just murdered the prodigal son of the Argy clan because he had raped Juan's girl back in Mexico. Juan and Buchanan barely escape a lynching thanks to the intercession of the Judge who has a scheme up his sleeve. The Judge has learned that Juan comes from a prominent family and intends to extort $50,000 from the family for his release. When news of this plan leaks out, the Sheriff and his minions kidnap Juan in order to score the ransom money. Buchanan, who has bonded with Juan during their time together in the clink. works to help free him. Of all the Ranown Westerns, it is Buchanan Rides Alone that best fits Andrew Sarris' description of Boetticher's films as "...floating poker games where every character took turns at bluffing until the final showdown." 🌵

L.Q. Jones and Randolph Scott

Buchanan Rides Alone's script is credited to Charles Lang who also wrote the script for Decision at Sundown, the film made just before Buchanan... in the Ranown cycle. These two films are closely aligned. In each, Scott rides into a Western town that is controlled by an evil oligarch. In each film, Scott runs afoul of the oligarch and is imprisoned in the town. In Buchanan..., Scott is twice imprisoned in the hoosegow, in Decision... he is trapped in a livery stable along with a sidekick played by Noah Beery for much of the film. This is why Decision at Sundown is the least interesting film in the series: it suffers from stasis. The film lacks the gorgeous tracking shots of men on horses that Lucian Ballard provides for Buchanan Rides Alone.

The other factor that makes Buchanan... a superior film to Decision... is the depth of characterization. This is presumably due to the uncredited efforts of Burt Kennedy who was brought in to punch up the script. Kennedy was credited as the sole author of the scripts for the other three films (The Tall T, Ride Lonesome, Comanche Station) that comprise the Ranown cycle. Kennedy's dialogue tends to be wittier than Lang's and he provides more ambivalent motivations for the villains. This film provides rich opportunities for supporting players such as Craig Stevens who suavely embodies the personage of Carbo, Judge Agry's lead gunsel, and Joe De Santis who plays the right hand man of the unseen Mexican patriarch. 

I also especially enjoyed Peter Whitney as the film's comic relief, particularly his gambols around town to fill the characters in on the latest development in the overly convoluted plot. The character of Amos is as scuzzy in his mien as he is in his morals.

Jennifer Holden

The performance I will most cherish from this film is by L.Q. Jones. He plays Pecos, a hired hand of the Agry clan who is eventually instructed to help in the assassination of Buchanan. However, the two have bonded over shared Texas roots and Pecos dispatches his fellow assassin, saving Buchanan. The relationship between the two men is foreshadowed by a brief moment in Decision Before Sundown in which Scott acknowledges a fellow Texan. This is amplified in Buchanan Rides Again into a warm portrait of nascent male friendship. Before Pecos' inevitable demise, he and Buchanan talk of partnering on a ranch in Texas, a pipe dream marriage of males out of Leslie Fiedler. Jones was born in Beaumont, Texas and the role suits him perfectly. It is nice to see him for a change in a role in which he is not a creep or a cold blooded killer. Scott was a preppy from the south, but was always pretty good at approximating a Texas drawl. His aristocratic demeanor is helpful in this series because he is playing an embodiment of noble rectitude. He would have made a good George Washington. On the other side of the acting spectrum from the petrified statuary of Scott are the few flashes of Jennifer Holden, who is lightening in a bottle in this very good Western. After appearing in Jailhouse Rock and Gang War, this was her final screen appearance.

🌵 Andrew Sarris, The American Cinema, pg. 124.

The Nile Hilton Incident

Fares Fares

Tarik Saleh's The Nile Hilton Incident is an engrossing crime thriller with political overtones. Set in Cairo in 2011 amidst the fall of the Mubarak regime, the film chiefly follows the investigation by police officer Mostafa Noredin of the murder of a would be singer named Lalena. The film, an original screenplay by Saleh, is based on the real life murder of Suzanne Tamim in Dubai. As in that case, the murderer, who has Lalena executed by a professional, is a wealthy businessman with important connections amoung the powers that be in Cairo. The widespread corruption under Mubarak is stressed, even Noredin (Fares Fares), the film's ostensible hero, is not above filching cash from a stiff. As counterpoint to Noredin's investigation, the film chronicles the struggles of the case's star witness, a maid at the Hilton named Salwa (Mari Malek). Salwa lives with a group of Sudanese refugees lorded over by the cruel man who brought them to Cairo. The hovel Salwa lives in is in marked contrast to the funky bachelor pad that widower Noredin uses to watch TV while he drinks.    

A number of American critics compared this to Chinatown and LA Confidential, but it reminded me more of the crime films based in New York that were directed by Sidney Lumet. Like Lumet, Saleh is a socially conscious director who chooses to expose institutional corruption in his films. Both directors utilize an array of supporting performers in an effort to paint a broad portrait of a city's populace. One of the joys found in The Nile Hilton Incident is the gamut of memorable supporting performances that evoke the variety of characters one finds in a vast metropolis, from an opium smoking pimp and extortionist to a stone faced secret police officer. Hania Amar has a wonderful turn as a singer who seduces Noredin into a honey trap. Salwa is the only two dimensional character, verging on a damsel in distress. Noredin is not always the most sympathetic protagonist, but Saleh is able to humanize him with deft touches like having Noredin share a smoke with a picture of his late wife. I recommend The Nile Hilton Incident which is currently streaming on Netflix and has been issued on a handsome disc by Strand Releasing.

Razzia sur la chnouf

Lila Kedrova and Jean Gabin

Henri Decoin's Razzia sur la chnouf (roughly "Dope Raid") is an effective, if unspectacular French crime melodrama. The film was adapted from a novel by Auguste Le Breton whose canon includes novels which were the basis for the films Rififi and The Sicilian Clan. Jean Gabin plays Henri Ferré, who we meet returning from the United States where he has been reputably working for a narcotics ring. Ferré is recruited by a local crime boss named Liski (the always welcome Marcel Dalio) who needs a steady hand to run his drug operation. Liski arranges for Ferré to manage a club which serves as a front for the cartel. When Ferré needs to rub out weak or untrustworthy links in the organization, he calls upon Liski's gunsel, Roger the Catalan, embodied by the ever dependable Lino Ventura. A comely and very young barmaid (Magali Noël) does what women do in Jean Gabin pictures and tucks herself into his trench coat. Lila Kedrova, most famous for her role in Zorba the Greek, is featured as an unreliable dealer who has been dipping too regularly into her own stash. 

Kedrova is the only one in the cast who chews the scenery a little too much, but given the lurid nature of her role that may not be entirely her fault. Her character is so off the rails that she, after having a few puffs on a reefer, pulls a train in an "Arab" club. The whole film veers close to exploitation, reveling in a display of sexual proclivities and drug use not possible for a Hollywood film in 1955. Decoin's direction is workmanlike and efficient. There is little use for flashy stylistics in a piece of pulp like this. Decoin resorts to a whip pan at one point, but just to disguise the fact that his louche club set is a partial one. Gabin hold together the film with his unflappable presence. After the success of Touchez pas au grisbi gave his career a second wind, Gabin would spend the rest of his career gliding serenely through the gangster haunts of nightclubs and working class cafes. His stoic demeanor barely masks a macho vigor that puts the beta males in their place and proves to be catnip for the ladies. I particularly like the finale of Razzia sur la chnouf in which a lineup of the usual suspects serves as a fitting curtain call for the players.