David Meuel

Even though the literature on film noir continues to grow at a dizzying pace, there is still some virgin territory to be claimed. David Meuel's The Noir Western: Darkness on the Range, 1943-1962 would appear to be the first book-length treatment of its subject (I say "appears to be" because such assertions have a way of being disproven later). The concept of noir westerns as a subset of "off-genre noirs" goes back a long way, and has been discussed in sections of books (such as Alain Silver show more et al.'s Film Noir: An Encyclopedic Reference to the American Style, which first appeared in 1979) and in articles (such as Michael Shepler's 2008 "Sagebrush Noir: The Western as 'Social Problem" Film," which oddly goes unmentioned by Meuel). But it has long merited fuller treatment, and Meuel's well-written, engaging study is an excellent start on that. There will certainly be more books on the subject ahead.

Discussions of film noir can easily bog down in definitional disputes, which even though I am a participant at one of the best noir discussion boards, The Blackboard, I try to steer clear of. Although "film noir" was first used as a descriptor in France in the late 1940s, it was not a recognized term in the United States until the early 1970s. Therefore, as one of our finest noir scholars James Naremore has pointed out, it is "a concept that was generated ex post facto." No director or screenwriter of the "classic noir period" (fairly close to Meuel's defined dates of 1943 to 1962) would have known at the time that noir films were what they were making. It was inevitable that complete consensus on the use of the term would never be reached, and it has not been; as Naremore states, "no writer has been able to find the category's necessary and sufficient characteristics." The edges of the phenomenon are blurry even if the core is not.

In dealing with a branch of off-genre noir, David Meuel is necessarily operating at the edges, where disputes about what is in and what is out are potentially the most bruising. I'm not going to worry it. He has chosen 21 films by 11 directors to concentrate on, while identifying another 50 relevant movies in an appendix. His arguments on behalf of the inclusion of the 21 films are reasonably persuasive without amounting to a "Meuel test" for what constitutes a noir western. Thematic complexity, psychological depth, visual style, and bleakness of outlook all figure into his analysis, but in differing proportions with respect to each title and director.

When you look at it that way, the scope of the noir western could be construed very broadly. Any double fan of noir and westerns, and there are many, will readily think of some titles that Meuel has not listed - Joseph Kane's Ride the Man Down or Don Siegel's The Duel at Silver Creek, for instance (both 1952). In fact, it is harder to EXCLUDE many 1946-1960 Westerns from consideration than it is to include them. If one combs carefully through any of the numerous printed iterations of Phil Hardy's indispensable work on the Western, many of the descriptions of obscure A-/B+ Westerns spring off the page as meriting viewing and additional research in connection with this theme. And no one, as far as I am aware, has even started working on the noir strain in television Westerns.

So Meuel is a pioneer, and all that ultimately matters is whether he is a GOOD pioneer, which he manifestly is. He found the spot-on publisher for this sort of material, McFarland, which has long specialized in offering the findings of independent scholars in popular culture, whose work is many cuts above mere fan writing, but generally more accessible and less jargon-ridden than the books that university presses put out. (Many such volumes are invaluable, but may present more of a challenge to the uninitiated.)

Well before the tag "noir" was applied to Westerns, the sort of movies that Meuel discusses were called adult, psychological, serious, and literary Westerns, and later, as we headed into the Sixties and Seventies, revisionist Westerns. An equally good description for some of them would be "arthouse Westerns"; in fact, a book parallel to Meuel's and covering many of the same films could be written that minimized references to noir and concentrated on how the arthouse attitude came to shape a genre one might think would be immune to it. I have a soft spot for many of the more extreme arthouse Westerns that Meuel resists a little bit - Anthony Mann's The Furies, William Wellman's Track of the Cat, Delmer Daves' Jubal - although he does very well by Wellman's The Ox-Bow Incident, one of the very first arthouse Westerns. Somehow John Ford always escapes being labeled "arthouse," despite the obvious fact that every single last thing in his films, every frame, is intensely CONSIDERED.

The shift to more "adult" Westerns involved a number of directors, among whom Anthony Mann has received his just due, and Delmer Daves definitely has not. Meuel has a fine feel for the different personalities and strategies of these directors and honors all of them, who in addition to Mann, Ford, Wellman, and Daves include Budd Boetticher and Sam Fuller (long cult favorites), Raoul Walsh (not one bit inferior to the more celebrated Howard Hawks), Robert Wise (a supreme craftsman), Henry King, Allan Dwan, and Andre De Toth.

In short, this is a highly worthy addition to the film buff's bookshelf. show less

The Noir Western: Darkness on the Range 1943-1962 by David Meuel.

"He looks mighty average to be such a big man"

The above quote is from the film "The Gunfighter" and it opens the section of the book discussing the film of the same name, however it could easily open this entire lucid and thoughtful examination these films and their directors since these men and their movies where often underestimated in their day.

I think it is significant that the film released in 1950 "The Gunfighter" often show more credited as the first adult western appears in the middle of David Meuel's book as he makes a strong case as indicated in his subtitle "Darkness on the Range, 1943-1962" to trace "The Noir Western" and simultaneously the adult western back to a film released in 1943 "The Ox-Bow Incident". The author follows a dual track both examining these noir inflected westerns in approximately chronological order of their production and offering quick sketches of the men who directed these films. In following this approach it allows Meuel to examine the noir themes and techniques of a particular director across 1 to 3 films. In addition to Wellman the book examines films by Raoul Walsh, Andre de Toth, Robert Wise, Sam Fuller, Henry King, Anthony Mann, Allan Dwan, Delmer Daves, Budd Boetticher and John Ford.

As the director of "The Ox-Bow Incident" William Wellman becomes the first focal point looking at his additional noir westerns "Yellow Sky" and "Track of the Cat". It is great way to structure the book and these three films help Meuel illustrate how all the western noir films both confound, embrace and contradict the 'perceived' western movie norms of their day. Prior to 'Ox-Bow" a 'movie western' meant black hats versus white hats with the good guys riding to the rescue, such that the visual and thematic darkness of 'Ox-Bow' was shocking and confounding to viewers and critics. "Yellow Sky" has all the elements of classic noir crime film like "The Asphalt Jungle" although it does swerve to a seemingly tacked on happy ending while "Track of the Cat" finds Wellman shooting a color film in the mid-50s where he and his cinematographer create a stark visual palette ironically drained of color.

As with Wellman on "Track of the Cat" it is important to understand that the directors often chose to design and shoot their films to reflect noir themes. For example by the time Delmer Daves directed the original '3:10 to Yuma' in the late 50s shooting in color and featuring wide-open spaces was the western norm, yet he shot this film in black & white with many scenes set in enclosed claustrophobic spaces. Even more startling in its day was John Ford's "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance" filmed in the early 60s in black & white on some very basic studio sets instead of the wide-open vistas of Monument Valley. Meuel successfully makes the point again and again that these directors made visual and thematic choices that strongly align these particular westerns with the dark stories and characters of film noir.

While the writing and the structure of the book flow beautifully for a very enjoyable reading experience I did encounter some issues which gave me pause. There were typos and other errors that where distracting and disappointing. For example in the section discussing Henry King's film "The Bravados" starring Gregory Peck, Henry Silva's character 'Lujan' is repeatedly misidentified as 'Luhan' and in the book's conclusion the director of "There Will Be Blood" is incorrectly identified as Paul Michael Thomas instead of the correct Paul Thomas Anderson.

Excepting the concerns I noted above I endorse this examination of noir images and themes in western films especially the way the author highlights films and filmmakers who remain outside the spotlight. The book has detailed end Notes and a thorough Index. I also appreciate that in addition to the films featured in the text that David Meuel provides his readers with a list of 'Fifty Additional Noir-ish Postwar Westerns Worth Seeing'. show less

THE NOIR WESTERN, by David Meuel.

This is definitely a "niche" sort of book, and one with immense appeal to film buffs. I was a boy in the fifties, and grew up on a steady diet of Saturday matinees featuring those other kinds of westerns, the ones with Gene Autry, Roy Rogers, and Rex Allen, along with the lesser knowns like Johnny Mack Brown, Jimmy Wakely, Lash LaRue and the Durango Kid - shoot-em-ups all, for the front-row kids. But then came high school, and I graduated to the Sunday movies show more which often did feature Randolph Scott (Old Highpockets), John Wayne, Jimmy Stewart, Barbara Stanwyck, Glenn Ford and others. But the truth is I was pretty much oblivious to the directors of these films, or what their particular 'visions' or 'world views' might be reflected in their work. I was there for the story.

But David Meuel has 'explained' these visions and world views in this well-researched and eminently readable tome on important films from about a dozen directors - some famous, some virtually forgotten. I knew John Ford and William Wellman, of course, and Robert Wise for his non-western films. But the others - Walsh, de Toth, King, Dwan, Mann, etc. - were unknown to me, although I found I had watched quite a few of their films. But I knew what Meuel was talking about when he explained how the 'dark side' of things began creeping into westerns in the late forties, fifties and on up into the early sixties, when westerns began to decrease in both numbers and popularity. A lot of the films studied here did show up at our small-town second-run theater back in the fifties and sixties. I still remember RAMROD, THE TRACK OF THE CAT, THE NAKED SPUR, 3:10 TO YUMA and THE HANGING TREE. And of course I remember Lee Marvin, John Wayne, and James Stewart in THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE, with its comic scenes as well as its darker edges. And although the name of director Budd Boetticher meant nothing to me, I was a rabid fan of Randolph Scott westerns, so I probably should have known who Boetticher was. I found the chapter on him and Scott particularly enjoyable, not to mention enlightening. And it took me back to the dark cool spaces of the Reed Theater in the mid-fifties. In particular, I remember one of the last films I saw there before leaving for the Army. It was Sam Peckinpah's RIDE THE HIGH COUNTRY, which Meuel mentions here, a film I still count as one of the best, and most beautifully filmed, westerns every made. It was, I think, Randolph Scott's last film, and a fitting swan song. He was paired with another favorite actor, Joel McCrea. I love that film, and have probably seen it more than a dozen times by now.

There is plenty in here about lighting, the use of dark and shadows, particularly in the black-and-white films. And cinematographers and writers also get proper credit. I found the book not only entertaining, but also educational, and if I were a real film buff, I would probably give the book five stars. In any case, David Meuel knows his stuff and has done his homework. So if you want to know more about the evolution of THE NOIR WESTERN, I will recommend this book highly. Well done, Mr. Meuel. show less

What The Blues and Country/Western are to music, Film Noir and Westerns are to the movies- the two great American inventions (or rather, gifts to the world) in their respective fields in the Arts (yes, Rock and Roll and Jazz are also American inventions, but both of these can trace their roots back to Blues and C/W). In The Noir Western, author David Meuel has managed to merge whay at first seems like veritable contradiction in terms (Westerns/Noir) into a coherent and cogent unified whole, show more while doing justice to the auteur interpretation of great film as molded by great directors.
In his introductory chapter, The Dark Cowboy Rides into Town, Meuel explains cogently and convincingly how the two forms melded in the aftermath of World War Two. It should not be necessary to explain to any film buff the roots of Noir and it’s use of shadow and light, strange camera angles and the pervading sense of despair and hopelessness that lies at the heart of the genre, but the author’s describing how that path led from the dark and tawdry streets of unnamed and paranoid metropolises to the dusty trails and barren wastes of the West is flawlessly executed.
The first chapter, The Darkening West, deals with three films by William Wellman: The Oxbow Incident, Yellow Sky and Track of the Cat. The first two films, shot in glorious B&W, are among this reviewer’s favorite Westerns. The first (and earliest of all the films in the book) manages to convey a claustrophobic (quite a trick for a Western) and disquieting sense of pervasive evil, and the second, though seemingly much wider, manages to resolve it self in darkness and greed. The third film selected by the author, despite being shot in color, conveys a sense of malevolency that is almost stifling in its palpability. Mr. Meuel does a fine job of taking our eyes off of what is right in front of us (The West) and narrowing our perspective to a pinpoint of clarity, a clarity that, counter intuitively, reveals not sharp relief but rather a murky adumbration of what we expected to see.
I could go into similar detail with the other ten directors and their films that Mr. Meuer selected for inclusion in his book, but that would be a long and wearisome read for a perspective purchaser of this book. Suffice it to say that any reader who enjoys movies as a whole or either genre in specific will not be disappointed by thought the author put into this work. I recommend it highly for all students of film and anyone who likes a good movie enough to go deeper than the credits as they roll across the screen. show less