A Welcome Western In 3-D

Gun Fury (1953) Promised Much, But Did It Deliver?

This By Far The Dominant Art Even On Euro Posters

A western was a western was a western by 1953, unless advertising could somehow set one apart from the rest. Often that was done with sex-specific ads, and promises of content that the film would not deliver. Why would Code policies be suspended for the likes of Gun Fury? --- yet exploitation as here gave hope that this time maybe things would be different, that we'd see a woman made victim of an "act of violence" while her man is bound up and made to watch. There was a scene in Gun Fury with a man tied and a woman carried off, but it was nowhere approximate to what lurid ads suggested. "If It Was Your Woman This Happened To ..." meant one thing, and movies were years away from license to depict that onscreen. Notion of "her man" riding south to "avenge" the act was also not fulfilled, short of motive painted very broad and having nothing to do with an assault that does not take place. This sort of art and graphics, however, was what sucked patronage into theatres for Gun Fury, a western few would mistake for anything other than ordinary. What stood it out, then and more so now, was application of 3-D, a process more than rehabilitated by what digital can now do.

Lately-out Gun Fury on Blu-Ray is at least as good as most 3-D of the era. Raoul Walsh directed, him with one functioning eye since 1929, of which some express wonder how he could perceive depth, but where was need of that for a man forty years in film by 1953? Instinct alone made seeing of result superfluous. Busy foreground and known tricks were familiar to the recipe, guns fired at the camera like in The Great Train Robbery (which RW probably saw first-run), plus jolt of a rattler leaping for the lens, a best shock effect I've so far seen in depth (we wonder who dreams up 3-D gags --- the director, camera crew, a brought-in consultant?). Distinction of Gun Fury is in story and dialogue, so 3-D could lie back as it has for sixty-five years and we'd still have an adequate show (Inferno a same sort of treat, flat or deep). Up and comer writers were at work, one of them Roy Huggins, who'd pen more westerns, then run the table once cowpokes took over television (Maverick was his). To Gun Fury depth, add that of heavies Phil Carey and Leo Gordon, both shaded well for interact with convention-serving Rock Hudson and Donna Reed.

High Noon made outdoor action a lure to grown-ups who liked nuance beyond black hat-white hat. So-called "adult" westerns, done both cheap and expensive, waited in wings as Saturday saddles were put permanent in 50's bunkhouse, Republic, then Columbia, even biggest names like Autry and Rogers, giving up spurs to thirty-minute TV or rodeo appearing. Seems kids did a lot of growing up during and after the war and wanted cowboys to speak plainer, result a lot of theatres doffing short-pants action in favor of leather slapped harder. I had a friend whose parents took him to a presumed kid appeal show that had The Law and Jake Wade for a second feature, that one tough as most came in postwar reboot of westerns. The boy was eight when exposed to what for him may have been a first theatrical western, but die was cast, and nothing older time cowpokes did after this could win him. The 50's were possibly a peak decade for westerns, which like crime thrillers or what's loosely called noir, were prolific as sand on a beach. How much of it have we still not accounted for? (I keep coming across good ones that are new to me)

Comin' At Ya In Promotional Stills

3-D features can look better on our TV's than they ever did in theatres. Snafu-ing was rife during fad peak. Much of what made ships sink was presentation foul-up. Never mind what could go wrong ... better to ask what went right. In wake of digital takeover, would there be anyone left who could sync up 35mm dual prints today? Talk about gone --- show me a booth that even has side by side 35mm projectors (outside collector cribs that won't give film up). Imagine if they had digital in 1953-54. 3-D in that event might have stayed for keeps. What always soured me was dimness of depth images, at least where projected (memory of botched 70's revivals hard to shake). Best result nowaday comes of flat screen television where you don simple specs rather than battery-operated goggles required for projection TV. Success of Twilight Time 3-D discs bode well for more of same, and Kino has announced The Maze, plus Sangaree, for 2018 release. Find out more about those at 3-D Archive.