In 1948, Robert Wise directed Blood on the Moon, a terse psychological western, largely shot in California and Sedona, Arizona.
The vocabulary of film noir, manifest in both the interiors and exteriors, was courtesy of master cinematographer Nicholas Musuraca.
Grade: B+ (**** out of *****)
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Theatrical release poster
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Based on Luke Short’s 1941 novel, Gunman’s Chance, adapted to the screen by Lillie Hayward and Harold Shumate, the movie stars Robert Mitchum, Barbara Bel Geddes, and Robert Preston, all in top form.
Robert Mitchum is well cast as the cowboy-drifter Jim Garry, who’s summoned by his friend, the smooth-talking Tate Riling (Robert Preston) into an Indian reservation, finding himself embroiled in a conflict between cattle owners and homesteaders.
Cattle owner John Lufton, and his daughters, Amy (Barbara Bel Geddes) and Carol (Phyllis Thaxter), are initially hostile to Garry, suspecting that he is on Riling’s side.
Garry and Indian agent Jake Pindalest have devised a scheme to force Lufton into selling cheaply his herd to meet the deadline of the government order to remove his cattle.
Conning the homesteaders into believing he is representing their best interests, Riling organizes them into blocking the move. The plan is for the government to buy the herd at inflated prices, and for Garry to get $10,000 bonus for the swindle.
In the end, Riling is fatally wounded, Pindalest is taken into custody, and Garry decides to settle down with Amy.
Maintaining a nice balance in rhythm and mood, Wise’s direction is leisurely-paced in the dialogue scenes, and taut in the action sequences, building toward the mano-a-mano fight between Mitchum’s Garry and Preston’s Rilling.
The bar fight, which took three days to shoot, was based on Wise’s firm conception that in a realistic fight, the winner should come out badly beaten and exhausted, instead of the usual Western brawls.
It is Mitchum, with his natural charisma and effortless masculimity that hold the film together. Reportedly, when he showed up to the set dressed up in costume, Walter Brennan exclaimed: “That is the realest goddamnest cowboy I’ve ever seen!”
After the film was completed, Howard Hughes terminated Barbara Bel Geddes’ RKO contract, holding that she was not sexy enough. It’s a charge that was leveled against the actress throughout her career, though she later originated the role of Maggie “the Cat” in the 1955 stage production of Tennessee Williams’ “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.” When the play was made into a movie, in 1958 by Richard Brooks, the role of Maggie was assigned to Elizabeth Taylor, and Brick was played by Paul Newman (Ben Gazzara had created the part on stage).
Released on November 9, 1948, Blood on the Moon was profitable at the box-office, with earnings more than double of the $1.5 million production budget.
Credits:
Directed by Robert Wise
Screenplay by Lillie Hayward, Harold Shumate, based on The novel “Gunman’s Chance,” 1941 by Luke Short
Produced by Theron Warth
Cinematography Nicholas Musuraca
Edited by Samuel E. Beetley
Music by Roy Webb
Distributed by RKO Radio Pictures
Release date: Nov 9, 1948 (US)
Running time: 88 minutes
Budget $1.5 million
Box office $2.4 million (US rentals)
