Very well executed

Pretty Good

everything you have heard about this movie is true.

The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

This interesting western was shot mainly around Durango, CO, and the Aztec ruins in NM., as well as some studio shots, all in Technicolor. I enjoyed it despite a few questionable aspects........ Clearly, the heart of the drama is the complex and fluctuating relationship between James Cagney's and John Derek's characters. It starts out something like the relationship between mature ex-sheriff Henry Fonda and young new sheriff Anthony Perkins, in "The Tin Star", where Fonda gives Perkins advice on how to be an effective sheriff and gunslinger. In the present case, the mature Cagney gives a reluctant young Derek a chance to prove himself as a sheriff's deputy. But, in this case, it doesn't work out well, as Derek loses a prisoner(played by Ernest Borgnine) he is escorting to another town. Derek quits in embarrassment.. He then, unknowingly, joins a band of thieves, who rob the town bank in broad daylight, while practically the whole town is in church. The gang would soon meet an ignominious end, without involvement of the sheriff or town's people........Let me say that, when Cagney and Derek first met, out in the boondocks , Cagney very nearly pugged Derek, who came upon him quite by surprise. This was just the first of a series of incidents where it was the intent of one to defend or to shoot or otherwise promote the death of the other. While on the trail of the bank robbers, Derek suddenly, pulled out his gun and was about to fire at Cagney, when his horse reared up. This is when Cagney discovered that he was allied with the robbers(In what capacity, isn't apparent). For a while, they rode together in an uneasy truce. But when, they have to swim a raging river, Cagney calls out for help, but Derek ignores him. Derek gets to the far shore first, and heads for the Aztec ruins, where he finds Borgnine: the prisoner who escaped from him(Why did he come to this forsaken place?). They have an uneasy truce. WARNING: SPOILER ALERT! Cagney survives the rapids and later encounters these ruins, eventually finding the other 2. Initially, there is an uneasy truce. But, Borgnine draws on Cagney, who shoots him apparently dead. The remaining 2 have some words. Borgnine is not quite dead, and slowly reaches for his gun on the floor. Cagney doesn't see this, but Derek finally does, as Borgnine is about to shoot Cagney. Derek draws his gun and fires at Borgnine, while Cagney shoots Derek, whom he assumed drew to kill him: Only one lucky survivor, and he knows where the bank money is hidden........Viveca Lindfors, as Helga Swenson, who emigrated from Sweden with her father, takes a liking to Cagney, seeing his devotion to his friend Derek, who had serious gunshot wounds instilled by a posse that assumed that he, along with Cagney, were a pair of train robbers. Derek is staying with the Swensons during recovery. Pretty soon, Cagney and Helga are talking marriage. Cagney says he wants to live in their house. But, this may sometimes cause conflict with Mr. Swensen. Conveniently, the latter is formalistically killed in the bank raid, thus eliminating this potential problem. This principle is applied in many westerns, where the traditional significant other of a person is eliminated to symbolically clear the way for a new significant other.

Run for Cover (1955)The first reason to see this is the simple fact it's a Nicholas Ray movie. Ray didn't direct many movies, but among those few are some of the best--or at least my favorites--in the whole history of Hollywood. "They Live by Night" and "In a Lonely Place" are moving and interesting masterpieces, and "Johnny Guitar" is completely bizarre and original and a wild ride. Only slightly less interesting to me but more iconic is "Rebel without a Cause," made the same year as this one."Run for Cover" is an awkward fit, a Western by a director of mostly urban dramas. James Cagney isn't really cast wrong, per se, because he's presented as an outsider in this typical rough frontier town, but he comes off a little superficial, using his razor fast approach as an end rather than a means. And I think this is because the story is weak. It sounds good on paper, but it unfolds a little obviously, with some filler and some seemingly requisite but boring views of beautiful landscapes. There are gunfights, a run-in with Indians, and deception. It's a story without emotional subtlety and Ray is best a peeling back layers in human interaction, not just showing the action.Even the interesting Viveca Lindfors (who originally led me to the movie after seeing her in "Backfire," is oddly stiff, doubly odd because she's a Swedish immigrant playing a Swedish immigrant. You get the feeling she was never a poor farmer back home.I don't mean to pile on criticisms, but it's worth saying that the direction isn't good, either. The filming is dull, there are a couple of odd moments like when a big log suddenly appears in the river to save someone, and sometimes the cuts don't match one to the next. I'm guessing there's a deeper story to the awkwardness here, but all we have is the awkwardness.Not that it's a disaster. I watched the whole thing, and the key theme of being honorable even when being misunderstood is good. And a really nasty deception (or plain old ingratitude) is pulled off right before our eyes, more than once.. The filming location seems to be Colorado rather than California or Arizona (as many Westerns are), and that gives it a different feel. And there is a short section (out of nowhere) shot in an ancient Indian ruin in New Mexico, with good atmospherics. Plug your ears to some of the overdone music, and let the plot ride off a little on its own and there's a good chance you'll like a lot of this movie.

Run For Cover was the second of three westerns that James Cagney made and in my mind it is easily the best of them. The Cagney of Yorkville is left way behind in a way he wasn't in The Oklahoma Kid.Cagney is a recently pardoned prisoner who spent six years in jail for a crime he didn't commit. He meets up with young John Derek on the trail and the two hit it off. But unfortunately they are mistaken by some panicky railroad employees as members of a local gang and get a sack of money thrown down at them. Then its further compounded by a trigger happy sheriff played by Roy Teal who shoots them both down, seriously wounding Derek.Derek is bitter as the result of permanent injuries to his leg, but the townspeople warm up to Cagney and replace Teal with him as sheriff. But Derek isn't up to the job of deputy in a few senses of the word.Derek did his mending on the farm of Jean Hersholt where there's a lovely Swedish farmer's daughter in Viveca Lindfors. She and Cagney hit it off quite well. In fact this was the farewell screen role for Jean Hersholt.Grant Withers makes a fine sinister outlaw leader with Ernest Borgnine as a very sly second in command. Their robbery scheme sets up the whole inevitable climax between Cagney and Derek.Cagney was a far better westerner in Run For Cover than in any of his other two westerns. I like very much the way director Nicholas Ray built up his two leads and there's good development of the secondary characters, always the mark of a good film.

A rather diverse cast was assembled for this fairly standard western. Cagney plays a loner, traveling towards a town in which he hopes to put down stakes when he runs into hotshot young 'un Derek. The two strike up a tenuous camaraderie and happen upon a passing train whose engineers mistake them for robbers. Soon the townspeople and the sheriff are of the same mind and a posse comes out to shoot Cagney and Derek for a crime they didn't commit! Cagney is grazed in the scuffle, but Derek is near death and has a badly mangled leg. Once the misunderstanding is cleared up, Cagney stays on at a farm on the outskirts of town to look after Derek. The farm, run by old-world Swede Hersholt and his single daughter Lindfors, begins to grow on Cagney and he decides to stay in town despite the mentality of the citizens and eventually rises to Sheriff. Lindfors also begins to grow on Cagney and, after Derek is well enough to limp around, they fall in love. Things get sticky, however, when the local bank is held up and Cagney must confront the same attitude from the townsfolk as he encountered when he met them (and Derek proves to be a less able Deputy than Cagney had hoped.) What is a rather typical western storyline is given a small boost by the skill of the director and the beautiful (and surprisingly lush and varied) New Mexican scenery. Cagney gives a solid performance and is well-matched by the energetic and sometimes intense Derek. (Derek is a full six inches taller than Cagney, so he's hunched over in various scenes and Cagney is elevated in order to play down the height differential. One scene in the jail, however, has Cagney looking downright diminutive in relation to the townsmen who are one small step up, yet tower over him.) The always tan and handsome Derek provides a small hint of the teen angst that director Ray would give full attention to in his later "Rebel Without a Cause". Lindfors is attractive and creative in her thankless role, with perhaps a bit too much hand-wringing and hysteria in her voice. Also, on her fourth husband in real life, she is hardly typecast as the repressed and virginal farm daughter! Folks who've been curious to know who in the world Hersholt was from his yearly humanitarian award given out by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences can get a healthy taste of him here. He brings a dry, but wry and understated quality to the stern, old-fashioned father. Borgnine is effective in a very small role as an outlaw. There's a very corny title song that gets the attention right off the bat, but things turn serious soon after. It's a simple, but diverting western with a mild surprise or two along the way.