The Tall Men VHS

Description

The Tall Men was neither the first nor the last Western to steal liberally from Howard Hawks's Red River, but mark this one "all in the family": William Hawks, Howard's brother, was the producer. Raoul Walsh directed, and his lusty, back-slapping way with both male-female dust-ups and testy masculine friendships is on abundant CinemaScope display. Clark Gable stars (his first of three films in a row with Walsh) as an adventurer who, along with younger brother Cameron Mitchell, sets out to separate the coolly ambitious Robert Ryan from a considerable sum of money. Instead he and Ryan wind up on-again/off-again partners-cum-rivals. There's an epic cattle drive (of course), and the chance to get snowbound in a cabin with Jane Russell. The Western locations are 'Scope-worthy, and Gable and Russell keep up a running contest as to who can growl from deeper in the chest. Advantage Russell. --Richard T. Jameson