PG | 1 h 43 min | Drama, Western | 1958
Weary from the Civil War, ex-Confederate soldier John Chandler (Alan Ladd) rides into an Illinois town. His 10-year-old son, David (David Ladd), so tiny he’s barely seen, sits back to back with his father and grins at his dog, Lance (King, a real-life champion border collie), trailing their horse.
John’s gun is slung on his hip, and looks like it’s seen busier times. John’s piercing eyes imply that he’s hunting for someone, but it isn’t who you’d suspect. He’s looking for a doctor who can cure David, struck mute from watching his mother die in a fire.
Befriended by the kindly Linnet (Olivia de Havilland), father and son work her 200-acre farm, biding their time to visit a surgeon in Minnesota who holds out promise for David’s condition. Town bully, Harry Burleigh (Dean Jagger), and his lumpen sons, want Linnet to surrender her farm to their sheep just so they can expand their ranch. Worn down by taunts, Linnet’s about to give in. Then, John takes a stand. He’ll defend her and her land, or die trying.
Michael Curtiz’s film title is a play on Ladd’s Johnny Reb character, but neither his pride nor his rebellion are what they seem. If he rebels, it is only against cowardly bullying. If he’s proud, it’s of his hard-won skills, farming or fighting, and his values, especially family.
David is mute by circumstance. John is pacifist by choice; he’s got David to care for and can’t take swings into every brawl that comes his way. He’s slow to clench his fists, and slower still to draw his gun. When Burleigh & Co. force sheep into her farm, Linnet rushes out with a gun. But to John, who’s seen enough killing, violence is a last resort. He restrains her, relying instead on Lance’s powers of persuasion with sheep, and his own herding skills to drive the marauding sheep out.
Redefining Heroism
Infinitely graceful, de Havilland excels in a patently physical role. Despite her petite stature, here she’s lifting tables, jumping off a horse wagon, leaping over a fence, hoeing, heaving wooden boards, drawing water, tethering horses.
Atypical hero, Ladd, just 5-foot, 7-inches tall compared to his nearly 6 and ½-foot tall peers, lends John an endearing ordinariness. He’s deferential, soft-spoken: not one to storm through bat-wings in bars. With David, he’s gentle, holding his hand, lifting his chin up to cheer him, patting him on the head, guiding him by the shoulder.
Far from indulging David, John demonstrates a work ethic that prefers duty over hedonism, sacrifice over wantonness. When David is reluctant to part with John, even to visit the surgeon, John softly says, “Sometimes we have to do things we don’t want to do.”
When Linnet offers to break troubling news about Lance to David, John refuses; he’d rather do tough conversations himself. John chooses Linnet to accompany David to surgery because he figures she’ll be a better comfort to him, while he stays to do the more arduous, thankless task: rebuild her ruined barn. Still, his self-reliance is neither a mask for manly pride nor an excuse to shun help when his family needs it. And he’s man enough to admit when he’s wrong.
Little David Ladd is outstanding in conveying both helplessness when danger looms and pure joy, whether it’s working cows or playing with his beloved Lance.
King, as Lance, is no extra inserted for light entertainment, but a vital character. The Burleighs, fated to take the dog captive, view Lance as they do John: a metaphorical gun-for-hire. Both prove the Burleighs wrong. Lance won’t bark for them. And John won’t bend, when coached to coax Linnet to sell out. Notice, too, how Lance mimics John’s restraint, herding by his presence, not his bark or his bite.
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