Dunson, of course, vows vengeance, and that he will come back and kill Matt, whom he claims is just a common thief. As Dunson is banished and the herd heads north, they encounter a wagon train being attacked by Indians. The men help defeat the savages, and, of course, the most beautiful of the dance girls in the train, Tess Millay (JoAnne Dru), falls instantly in love with Matt, after seeing his heroics and being so distracted by him she gets shot with an arrow through the right shoulder. Recall how I mentioned that the film’s end was perhaps the least satisfactory aspect of the film? Well, that perhaps is because the love story aspect is so forced and phony that it gives the ending a run for the money as the film’s nadir. That both involve Dru’s character is no coincidence. That said, her character is likable and well acted, and she is heaven on the eyes. There’s simply no real reason for her to be injected into the tale.
Naturally, Matt tells her she cannot come along, after they become intimate and he relates the tale of the avenging Dunson. When Dunson and some hired thugs catch up with the wagon train eight days later, they apparently have not decamped yet, he and Millay have a nice scene where they spar with each other, and she convinces Dunson to take her along. In Abilene, the cattle are sold, the men are happy, and they await the showdown between Matt and Dunson. It comes, and, at first plays realistically.
Dunson shoots Cherry, who wings him, then shoots past Matt’s head, then feet. Matt does not flinch. Dunson yells, "You’re soft! Won’t anything make a man out of you?" He then belts Matt a few times and tosses him to the ground. Then Matt fights back and starts kicking the older man’s ass. Then, Millay fires off her gun, gets the two men to admit they love each other, and the film ends in forced Hollywood style with Dunson stating he’ll add Matt’s M to the Red River ranch brand’s D, and with the sort of forced laughter that bad sitcoms use at the end of an episode. The end, literally. It’s that bad. So bad that it has to supplant the sunshiny ending of Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon as the worst ending of a great, or near great, film.
Article comments
1 - Jill Henry
"...Wayne has always been credited with creating his first real villain, Ethan Edwards, a racist killer..."
Remember, when the politically correct use the term racist, they simply mean white Gentiles who discriminate.
"I hate racists" translates to "I hate honkys!"
So, to translate the first quote: "his first real villain, Ethan Edwards, a honky killer"
2 - Dan Schneider
Back on planet Earth: as I'm not PC, is it fair to say it's that time of the month, Jill?
3 - paull
Missing from this account is the history of a bracelet. Years before the movie started, Dunson inherited it from his late mother. At the film start, he leaves it as a pledge of return to Fen in the first wagon train. Then he finds it on the wrist of an Indian he has just killed. Evidently the Indian had killed Fen. In later years, he gave it to Matt. Then Matt gave it as a keepsake to Tess. This isn't accidental.
The ending scene breakup by Dru firing a hogleg is of course silly, but that's not her fault. It's a stain of 40s movie requirement -- as is the sountrack quasi-heroic male chorus. The Tiomkin music is not all that bad.
Ms Dru more than earned her place in this movie in her earlier scene in a tent with a weary travel-stained Dunson, in which she tries to get him drunk so he won't follow Matt -- Dunson has a drinking problem -- and also considers shooting him with a derringer. She offers him possibly the greatest gift of his life -- she promises to bear him a son -- if he abandons his perverse desire to kill Matt. He rejects it. Killing is better than new life; and Dunson earlier won his Texas ranch by cold-blooded murder. The tent scene was open to all kinds of scenery-chewing, and there is nothing like that in this movie. As an intelligent and worldly woman, she offers Dunson an extraordinary sacrifice, as though it's just the sort of thing a woman would do. Very high moral level in this scene, which is seldom mentioned by critics.