Columbia's Westerns (CONT'D)

Glenn Ford, one of the few actors Harry Cohn put under contract at Columbia, displayed his wide range of talent in film noir classics such as THE BIG HEAT and opposite red-headed beauty Rita Hayworth in GILDA and others, but he is perhaps best remembered for his roles in some of the studio’s most popular westerns. In TEXAS, a cattle drive across the state is the set piece against which Ford’s good-guy cowboy goes head-to-head with William Holden’s cattle rustler. Ford’s “Dutchman” character pays the price for his greed for a hidden gold mine in LUST FOR GOLD. In 3:10 TO YUMA, a layer of moral and psychological tension infused the film with Ford playing an outlaw who is caught by a reward-seeking rancher played by Van Heflin. Ford starred in other successful westerns like THE VIOLENT MEN, JUBAL and COWBOY with notable co-stars such as Jack Lemmon, Broderick Crawford, Edward G. Robinson and Barbara Stanwyck.

While most of Columbia’s westerns were full of audience-luring action and adventure led by strong, gutsy cowboy heroes, none, perhaps, received more notice for their understated impact than the series of films made by Randolph Scott, his producing partner Harry Joe Brown and director Budd Boetticher. When Scott and Brown started to make moderately-budgeted pictures for Columbia under their Ranown production company banner, Scott was well into a lengthy and successful career. Having played leading men and supporting roles in virtually every genre imaginable and with a wide array of notable stars such as Irene Dunne, Tyrone Power and Shirley Temple to name but a few, Scott ultimately was most widely known for his westerns. It wasn’t until he teamed with Brown and Boetticher in the 1950’s, however, that he achieved the level of stardom still known to his fans today. Boetticher’s stark visual style and compact, intelligent stories combined with Scott’s portrayal of the quintessential strong, stoic and weathered loner, made films like RIDE LONESOME, THE TALL T and COMANCHE STATION wildly successful.

Despite the success of the Randolph Scott pictures and distinctive hits such as THE MAN FROM LARAMIE starring Jimmy Stewart, movie-going audiences in the 1950’s went to the movies less and started staying at home more, drawn by the lure of the small screen. The western found new life in television but the film genre all but disappeared. A new generation of fans, however, have come to understand and embrace the significance of these successful Columbia Pictures films.