The Tin Star was one of many film projects that Anthony Mann projected for James Stewart. When the two of them came to a parting of the ways on the set of Night Passage, this particular film fell to Stewart's good friend Henry Fonda.
Fonda plays a former sheriff turned bounty hunter who decided it was far better and easier to just bring 'em in any which way and collect a reward. As we all know from the many westerns we've seen bounty hunters were not respectable, but they certainly were necessary and they didn't have the same constraints as regular law enforcement.
Anthony Perkins is the new sheriff in a town where Fonda's come to claim a reward. But he's pretty green and nearly gets killed by town bully Neville Brand, but for Fonda's intervention. He asks Fonda for some lessons in how to do the job. Turns out he gets them in the nick of time.
The Tin Star is not as good as some of the westerns Mann did with Jimmy Stewart, but it's passable enough entertainment. Both Fonda and Perkins have love interests, Fonda with widow Betsy Palmer and Perkins with Mary Webster the daughter of the previous sheriff.
Palmer was previously married to an Indian and is raising a son by him played by Michel Ray. She's shunned by a lot of the 'respectable' folks in town like Brand who has a mean and vicious racist streak in him as well. The Tin Star raises an issue of racism that Mann had not tackled in any of his films since Devil's Doorway.
John McIntire is in the film as well as the beloved town doctor. McIntire was a regular in several Mann films and usually was a villain in them. His murder by Lee Van Cleef sets off the events for the climax of the film.
I like The Tin Star except for the finale. Try as I might, I can't conceive of Neville Brand taking a couple of slaps from Tony Perkins. What I think would have been the case was Brand would have duked it out instead of shooting it out with Perkins. And in a battle of fisticuffs, somehow I think Neville Brand would have taken Perkins.
But maybe I'm just being picky.
Fonda plays a former sheriff turned bounty hunter who decided it was far better and easier to just bring 'em in any which way and collect a reward. As we all know from the many westerns we've seen bounty hunters were not respectable, but they certainly were necessary and they didn't have the same constraints as regular law enforcement.
Anthony Perkins is the new sheriff in a town where Fonda's come to claim a reward. But he's pretty green and nearly gets killed by town bully Neville Brand, but for Fonda's intervention. He asks Fonda for some lessons in how to do the job. Turns out he gets them in the nick of time.
The Tin Star is not as good as some of the westerns Mann did with Jimmy Stewart, but it's passable enough entertainment. Both Fonda and Perkins have love interests, Fonda with widow Betsy Palmer and Perkins with Mary Webster the daughter of the previous sheriff.
Palmer was previously married to an Indian and is raising a son by him played by Michel Ray. She's shunned by a lot of the 'respectable' folks in town like Brand who has a mean and vicious racist streak in him as well. The Tin Star raises an issue of racism that Mann had not tackled in any of his films since Devil's Doorway.
John McIntire is in the film as well as the beloved town doctor. McIntire was a regular in several Mann films and usually was a villain in them. His murder by Lee Van Cleef sets off the events for the climax of the film.
I like The Tin Star except for the finale. Try as I might, I can't conceive of Neville Brand taking a couple of slaps from Tony Perkins. What I think would have been the case was Brand would have duked it out instead of shooting it out with Perkins. And in a battle of fisticuffs, somehow I think Neville Brand would have taken Perkins.
But maybe I'm just being picky.