IN THE ROLE THAT FITS HIM LIKE A GUN FITS A HOLSTER!

Link Jones (Gary Cooper) is on an important mission for his community when he gets caught up in a train robbery in Texas, staged by bandits that he knows all too well…

One of Cooper’s last films is a Western that critics didn’t really care for much at the time, except Jean-Luc Godard in France, who considered it a masterpiece. Over the years, it has become one of Anthony Mann’s most admired.

Admittedly, it is a little hard to imagine Cooper as a reformed murderer and he’s a little too old for the part (with Lee J. Cobb in old-age makeup as compensation). But it’s a compelling story, much of the tension depending on a psychological game between Cooper and his former gang.

1958-U.S. 100 min. Color. Widescreen. Directed by Anthony Mann. Screenplay: Reginald Rose. Novel: Will C. Brown (”The Border Jumpers”). Cinematography: Ernest Haller. Cast: Gary Cooper (Link Jones), Julie London (Billie Ellis), Lee J. Cobb (Dock Tobin), Arthur O’Connell, Jack Lord, Royal Dano. 

Trivia: Stewart Granger was initially set to play the lead.

Last word: “It was an original screenplay. And I had to try and break it from its rigidity, which was mostly talk. I would have changed the girl completely, if I’d only driven hard enough. But I wasn’t able to convince the guys who were producing. I eventually convinced Cooper, but by then it was too late. […] She’d have been his wife. It would have been much more moving. The other girl was stupid, and I hated it, and they wouldn’t let me. Just imagine if the wife had to do what she has to do. Then it becomes much more poignant.” (Mann, Screen)