Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

From my favorite movies..

Am i the only one who thinks........Average?

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

Taking part in a poll on ICM for the best films of 1940,I got the chance to once again watch John Ford's superb The Long Voyage Home. Reminded of Gregg Toland distinctive cinematography,I took a look at his credits,and found a 1940 Western that I've been meaning to watch for years,which led to me finally getting set to meet the outlaw westerner.The plot:Taking over a small-town saloon,"Judge" Roy Bean hands out sentences to anyone who does not give him a backhander. Drifting into town, Cole Harden is sent to court over claims he stole a horse from a pal of Bean's. Sensing Bean getting set to send him to the gallows,Harden notices that Bean has covered the saloon with posters of actress Lily Langtry,that gives Harden the idea to lie and say that he knows Langtry. Just before sentence is to be handed down,Bean holds it by a hair,in exchange for Harden getting a lock of Langtry's hair.View on the film:Hammering his "swift justice" to any unlucky fellow, Walter Brennan gives a sizzling,deep-fried performance as Bean. Cooking up the threatening power in Bean's hands,Brennan balances Bean's blunt orders of justice with a sweet comedic touch which makes Bean's head turn at the mere mention of Langtry (played by a powerfully alluring Lilian Bond.) Getting within a hair of being killed, Gary Cooper gives a striking performance as Harden,whose quick-witted exchanges with Brennan are hit with a Screwball Comedy curve-ball,which Cooper smartly makes sure never overshadows the outsider status of Harden.Riding into town just before setting sail on The Long Voyage Home, cinematographer Gregg Toland fearlessly cracks the "clean Western" image,via ultra-stylised clouds of smoke and fire giving the wilderness world Bean rules a burning pit appearance. Briefly glimpsing at the pure beauty of Langtry,director William Wyler gives the movie a glowing elegance, shimming from the earthy,outdoor fight scenes between Bean and Harden,to the whisky drenched walls of Bean's smoke-filled "court" saloon,as the Wersterner cowboy Harden enters the Wild West.

The Westerner, low on the special effects list still delivers such a satisfying punch, with a story that is complicated by character-driven plot turns, that the overall effect is one of real history. Based on the actual existence of at least one character Judge Roy Ben, the movie weaves together a fabric of fiction and history at once based on the myth of the West, while countering it to allow the viewer into a tale that fulfills every expectation.In his saloon in the town of Vinegaroon, Texas Judge Roy Bean (Walter Brennan) holds court and proclaims himself the only law west of the Pecos. When Cole Harden (Gary Cooper) is brought before him for judgment on a horse stealing charge it appears that the good-natured drifter will be hanged by the judge. When Cole notices the many images of the famed performer Lilly Langtry around the saloon he begins spinning a tale of his friendship with the woman, intriguing the judge and causing a suspended sentence to be handed down on the agreement t that Cole will give the judge a lock of the woman's hair that he has hidden in El Paso. The judge develops a strange admiration for Cole and the men become friendly until a local homesteader Jane Ellen Mathews (Doris Davenport) comes to the judge to complain of his hanging one of her hands. It seems the aggression between the cattlemen, which Judge Ben supports, and the homesteaders is bubbling over and Jane and her father who have a small farm are being pushed out. When Bean initiates a fire that destroys Jane's farm and kills her father Cole gets an arrest warrant and has himself deputized to arrest the judge, but a shoot-out erupts ending in tragedy.Much has been said of Gary Cooper's quiet, subtle acting technique and here it is in great form, but the real prize is Walter Brenan who plays the real-life Judge Bean with a host of idiosyncrasies that completely humanize the legendary figure. It becomes clear that the judge is abusing his power as a law enforcer in order to bilk money from those who are brought before him, but Brenan justifies all his character's motivations, and even when the motives are less than pure, we still can't help but find him lovable.The film takes fetishism to unreliable heights for a film from the 40s. The supposed lock of hair belonging to Lilly Langtry that Cole uses as leverage to escape sentencing is played against hold so much obsessive power of Judge Bean that Brennan positively drools over the talisman in the scene when Cooper's Cole hands it over to him. This is strange and new for a western and adds to the list of lore about the legendary judge that history has risen to mythic levels.As the love interest in the movie we know from the get-go that Cole and Jane represent the hope for the future in the ugly rough western land. And much of the earned success of the films characters will be at the expense of land, property, and loyalties. This sacrificing of the characters basic desires for something else, something with more valuable long-term effects leaves the films finale with a tainted sense of hope.The film runs a little long for one from 1940, and this is due to the way that director William Wyler works to allow the characters to tell their story and shape the film. If you fell at times that the plot drags, you will surely be drawn to how the actors are sculpting the tale. It's one you will return to again to see the great perfs from Walter Brennan and Gary Cooper.

The thought makes me smile. But the love story between Gary Cooper and the sensational Walter Brennan made me think of it. They sleep together the first night they meet. And when Roy Bean (Brennan) wakes up and Gary Cooper is gone, he goes crazy. He jumps out of bed and runs like the wind trying to find him, stop him from going. The excuse is a curl from Lilly Langtry. But the truth is in Walter Brennan's gaze. William Wyler - another German Hollywood director - gives us a slice of the American West, comparable to the one shown by Taiwanese Hollywood director Ang Lee in the superlative "Brokeback Mountain" The foreign eye looking in. Remarkable. The film is a gem from beginning to end. Don't miss it.

At first I couldn't figure out what the story's main conflict was. Then I went back and read the prologue: homesteaders vs. cattlemen. Oh. Maybe that was a big cultural rift back in the 19th century; but here in the 21st century, it seems a little too subtle. It also seems a little too weak as a premise to build a feature length story around. And so the relationship between Judge Roy Bean (Walter Brennan) and cowpoke Cole Harden (Gary Cooper) eclipses the main story line.Judge Bean's romantic obsession with Lily Langtry screams contrivance as a way to advance the script's weak plot. All that business with a lock of Miss Lily's hair just reeks of superfluous silliness. There's no organic story relationship between Miss Lily and the homesteaders. Were the scriptwriters grasping at corn straws? Further, the script is talky, and the plot plods along, slowly and all drawn-out.But with the exalted presence of Water Brennan, I suppose all is forgiven, or at least overlooked. And yet, even here, I find discontent. My mental image of Judge Bean is of an old man, hardened and tough. In this film, Brennan is anything but old. I would thus have preferred an older actor in the role, though in subsequent films Brennan is perfectly cast. And Gary Cooper plays his usual stiff, wooden self. Maybe his acting is just … subtle.If the script and the casting are imperfect, the film's dusty, indigent visuals convey a terrific look of 19th century authenticity, helped along by expansive B&W cinematography that captures a landscape that genuinely looks like the Trans Pecos of West Texas, where the story is set.The film's visuals thus save the film from being a complete dud. But the script is dreadfully weak, as it vacillates between two unrelated story elements, neither of which seems compelling.