Shot in Hollywood Western go to place Alabama Hills along with vast imposing Death Valley salt flats, William Wellman's Yellow Sky is a good looking at times slow western of greed in the search for gold.
Made in the same year as Treasure of the Sierra Madre, "Yellow" pales but holds its own with its terrain and decent performances from Gregory Peck as "Stretch" and Richard Widmark as "Dude" doing their standard good and evil parts along with a feisty performance from Anne Baxter.
Stretch Dawson and his rag tag band of bank robbers grab a drink and rob a bank before they find the US Calvary chasing them into the no man's land of Death Valley. Dying from thirst they come upon an abandoned town with a prospector and his daughter who strike it rich. Dude wants to grab it all but Stretch falling for the daughter sees it otherwise.
Master cinematographer Joe McDonald (My Darling Clementine, Viva Zapata, Panic in the Streets) once again paints some outstanding canvases of the great outdoors that enlivens matters but also excels in the noirish lit interior finale.
Wellman never attains the tense suspense he produced in The Ox-Bow Incident but he does create more than enough tension to make Yellow Sky a more than passable oater.
Made in the same year as Treasure of the Sierra Madre, "Yellow" pales but holds its own with its terrain and decent performances from Gregory Peck as "Stretch" and Richard Widmark as "Dude" doing their standard good and evil parts along with a feisty performance from Anne Baxter.
Stretch Dawson and his rag tag band of bank robbers grab a drink and rob a bank before they find the US Calvary chasing them into the no man's land of Death Valley. Dying from thirst they come upon an abandoned town with a prospector and his daughter who strike it rich. Dude wants to grab it all but Stretch falling for the daughter sees it otherwise.
Master cinematographer Joe McDonald (My Darling Clementine, Viva Zapata, Panic in the Streets) once again paints some outstanding canvases of the great outdoors that enlivens matters but also excels in the noirish lit interior finale.
Wellman never attains the tense suspense he produced in The Ox-Bow Incident but he does create more than enough tension to make Yellow Sky a more than passable oater.