"Nobody will ever understand what this did to people, how (Hollywood) destroyed them, made them hollow ... Jesus Christ, I don't want to become an ageless matinée idol, having to keep up my looks, lift my chin like Marlene and never dare smile in case my face cracks." ~ Tyrone Power

Henry Hathaway bullied and blustered his way through a very respectable career until his moment in the sun came towards the end of it with the blockbuster western True Grit, starring John Wayne. He made much better films decades earlier and one of his best is the taut and tense Rawhide, a western noir starring Fox staple Tyrone Power and a very dynamic Susan Hayward. The suspenseful script was written by John  Ford favourite Dudley Nichols and the superb black and white cinematography was from veteran Milton Krasner, a prolific cameraman who’d recently won best Cinematography for Robert Wise’s brilliant Film Noir, The Set-Up. It’s been suggested that the film was one of several that inspired Tarantino’s cartoonishly over the top western The Hateful Eight – if so, lessons on how to provide a no nonsense, direct western thriller were not learned. 

Tom Owens (Tyrone Power) is a privileged ‘easterner’ working on one of his father’s western outposts in order to learn the family business. He is guided by the grizzled and grump family friend Sam (Edgar Buchanan) as they help the several stagecoaches make their stop for food and fresh horses. A coach arrives that carries a woman and her child and news that some outlaws are nearby and to be wary. Because of the danger the child and Vinnie (Susan Hayward) are forced to stay behind at the station, creating tension between Tom and Vinnie. Soon a rider arrives claiming to be a lawman in pursuit of the outlaws, but he is their leader Rafe Zimmerman (Hugh Marlowe) and he gets the drop on Tom and Sam. The gang settles in and waits to rob the next gold shipment that is scheduled to arrive. 
 
Nichols was the writer of several small-scale scenarios that play out in a minimal setting, especially the classic western Stagecoach, which John Ford directed to perfection, and Rawhide fits firmly into this category. What is striking about the piece to modern viewers is the toughness of the script and the dimensionality of the villains, particularly their leader Rafe. Rafe aligns with Hitchcock’s principle, i.e., the stronger the villain the better the whole film will be and eventually the more satisfying the triumph of the hero. Hugh Marlowe excels as the dastardly Rafe, an educated and well-bred type trying to wrangle his rough and ready gang, superbly rendered by George Tobias, Dean Jagger and a remarkable Jack Elam in a role that is a long way from the comedy westerns he came to be known for. The three support actors are a key factor in making the entire project rise above its pulpy premise as they flesh out wonderfully colourful characters that would otherwise be genre ciphers.  

The brutality of the script is very modern – Sam is killed when the unstable Tevis (Jack Elam) shoots him in the back. Rafe instructs Tevis and Yancy (Dean Jagger) to bury him and Tom and Vinnie watch in horror as instead of picking the body up, they tie it to a rope and have a horse drag it away. Rafe heeds their protests and tells the disrespectful duo to pick Sam’s body up and bury him properly. Later in the piece the by now almost deranged Tevis takes several shots at the two-year-old toddler who escapes out into the open – very non-mainstream moments for a 1950s film in any genre. Gratz (George Tobias) is the third none-too-bright wheel and completes the western equivalent of the Three Stooges if they were both evil and stupid, but very human. Elam walks away with the honours with his eye catching (I know) turn as the leering, disturbed gunman and showed a dramatic side of him which may surprise people who know his broader comedic roles. 

Hathaway keeps the tension front and centre and gets fine performances from his key actors, especially Susan Hayward in a role that showed her dramatic chops, the ones that would bring her an Oscar several years later. The strength and vulnerability that Hayward had to summon as the only woman in a threatening and male world gave her rare scope for emoting – both standing up for herself with Tom at first, and then fending off the bad guys, especially the none too subtle sexual overtures of Tevis. Hayward is central to the dynamic at work here, the civilising effect of the child on the behaviour of some of the bad guys, not Tevis, and the dilemma of the ‘sugarfoot’ Tom in providing protection for the feisty and independent Vinnie. Tyrone Power, more identified as an urban character than a western type is ideally cast as Tom given he has a level of urban sophistication in the wilderness and this role demonstrated Power's urge to be known as a talented actor and not an ageing pretty boy. Tom and Rafe are two sides of the same coin and this gives Rawhide a central tension as both are capable and industrious people trying to get their way. 

There are some nice character breaks when the stagecoach arrives and the passengers eat with Tom and Rafe as they play a subtle game of cat and mouse. Jeff Corey, who’d been a bit player for over a decade plays a nice role as a stagecoach driver but soon found himself blacklisted for his leftist political leanings and fell back on becoming an acting coach and became one of the most popular acting coaches in Los Angeles. Hathaway handles the psychological and dialogue heavy stretches as well as he handles the action segments and keeps both elements in balance.  

Rawhide might never get into the upper echelon of great westerns in critical esteem but it deserves a mention in the top section of the second rank. Henry Hathaway might not have been the auteur that John Ford or Anthony Mann was in the genre but his journeyman talents as a director of westerns line up against Budd Boetticher and the Ranown Cycle with Randolph Scott. In a wider sense Hathaway shared a lot in common with Michael Curtiz, a studio apparatchik who was savvy enough to work with the system and not against it. Rawhide is a sturdy entry in western lore during a time when westerns were literally a dime a dozen and TV was about to multiply that cultural cache by a factor of ten. That makes its discovery as an overlooked gem welcome indeed.