3 Bad Men (Ford, 1926): BFI Southbank, NFT1, 3.10pm
This is the UK premiere of the 4K restoration of one of John Ford's early magnificent westerns. The screening features an introduction by Bryony Dixon, Rosie Taylor and Makeda Doyal and a live accompaniment by Ashley Valentine.MOMA review:
John Ford’s first epic western, the 1925 The Iron Horse, helped
to establish Fox as a major studio and Ford as Fox’s most prominent
director. Granted an even larger budget and creative independence for
his 1926 return to the genre, 3 Bad Men, Ford created perhaps
the most fully achieved of his silent features, a historical pageant
that never overwhelms its foreground characters. Establishing the theme that would define his work for decades to come –
the outsider who sacrifices himself for the good of the group that has
excluded him – Ford creates three lovably eccentric outlaws (played by
the early western star Tom Santschi; Allan Dwan regular Frank Campeau;
and the first of Ford’s elfin Irishman, J. Farrell MacDonald) who
resolve to protect a young homesteader (Olive Borden) and her fiancé
(George O’Brien) from the violence surrounding the opening of the Dakota
Territory. Villainy, in the form of the territory’s gambling boss, is provided by
the colorful Lou Tellegen, a Dutch-born actor who made his film debut
opposite his romantic partner Sarah Bernhardt in the 1912 Film d’Art
production La Dame aux camelias. Ford costumes Tellegen against
convention in dazzling white with a 20-gallon hat, likely a sly
reference to the extravagant costumes of Fox’s reigning cowboy star, Tom
Mix. A cascading series of action climaxes – including a land rush filmed
with (or so the studio claimed) 2,400 extras, 1,800 horses and 450
covered wagons – leads to the first of Ford’s haunting diminuendo
endings, which finds the young couple settled into an Edenic ranch with
their first child, still protected by the spirits of the baby’s three
godfathers. Paradoxically, 3 Bad Men would prove to be Ford’s last western until he returned to the genre, with far greater self-consciousness, with Stagecoach in 1939.
Dave Kehr
Here (and above) is the trailer.
No comments:
Post a Comment