Only now does it occur to me... JUBAL

Only now does it occur to me...  that my lifelong dream to see Charles Bronson throw a table at Ernest Borgnine would one day be realized!

Sheer visual poetry!  And from the freeze-framing, it looks like Bronson is in fact heaving that table across the room, while Borgnine has been replaced by a stunt double.

The movie's pretty good, too– a loose (very loose) retelling of OTHELLO (with Borgnine as Marty– I mean Othello, Rod Steiger as Iago, Valerie French as Desdemona, and Glenn Ford as Cassio),

JUBAL is a beautiful Eastmancolor Western that's tense, well-acted, and bursting with Douglas Sirk-ian melodrama.  It's not quite as good as my other Delmer Daves favorites (DARK PASSAGE and 3:10 TO YUMA), but it's well worth your time (even though Bronson's only in a supporting role).  It's also clear that Sergio Leone was a Delmer Daves fan, and it's funny how many of the film's tableaux are comprised entirely of actors who would go on to work with the Spaghetti Master:

Rod Steiger (DUCK, YOU SUCKER) and henchman Jack Elam (ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST.)

Charles Bronson (even wearing practically the same hat as in ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST) faces off with Steiger.

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Only now does it occur to me... RANCHO NOTORIOUS

Only now does it occur to me...  that even within the confines of a 50s studio Western, Fritz Lang still found ways to work in Expressionistic flourish.

He always loved to "suggest" murder when possible, instead of showing it outright– a murdered child's balloon floating away or an assassinated man's derby rolling on the ground, for example.  Here, we get some pretty spectacular rigor mortis that (purposefully?) recalls the theatrical poster of M.

 
The film also stars Weimar and Hollywood legend Marlene Dietrich, pictured here in her native habitat:

Anyway, one particular scene features a near-cabaret-ish performance (not quite so sultry as the staging in her career-making BLUE ANGEL appearances)

and the outlaws gaze lustily toward her in a rapid piece of editing that feels less like something from a 1950s studio picture, and more like the insanely brilliant "Whore of Babylon" sequence from Lang's masterpiece, METROPOLIS.

Also of note, among the lecherous, gazing outlaws are George "SUPERMAN" Reeves

(sporting a wicked scar)

 and an exceptionally young Jack "ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST" Elam, who probably played a henchmen in more Western films and TV series than any of his contemporaries, except for maybe Ward Bond.
  
As for the film?  It's not precisely a "classic," but it's a pretty terrific revenge picture shaded with moral ambiguity– very much in the vein of an Anthony Mann or a Budd Boetteicher flick.

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