Following the Civil War, headstrong rancher Thomas Dunson decides to lead a perilous cattle drive from Texas to Missouri. During the exhausting journey, his persistence becomes tyrannical in the eyes of Matthew Garth, his adopted son and protégé.
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CinemaSerf
8
By CinemaSerf
Perhaps not a film you'd expect to work given the stars, but John Wayne and Monty Clift do manage to convey a sense of a repectful, but loving relationship - something I don't recall ever seeing before (or since) in a Wayne film towards another man. Hawks takes us on a dirty, unrelenting cattle drive and we can almost feel the strains and tension build as the younger man rails against the almost brutal control of his father-figure. Walter Brennan, as ever, is superb but in this has a little more nuanced a role treading a fine line between his old friend and their younger protégé. The photography really does demonstrate just how tough the whole enterprise would have been for the real cattle drivers and the denouement is superbly staged. A truly epic example of the Western genre that is as good as it gets.
