The Ox-Bow Incident (1943)

The Ox-Bow Incident
Directed by William A. Wellman
Written by Lamar Trotti from the novel by Walter Van Tilberg Clark
1943/USA
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation
Repeat viewing/Netflix Rental
Number 168 of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

[box] Major Tetley: This is only slightly any of your business, my friend. Remember that.

Gil Carter: Hangin’ is any man’s business that’s around.[/box]

This tightly wound morality play is only nominally a Western.

Gil Carter (Henry Fonda) and Art Croft (Harry Morgan) ride into town to find the place abuzz about some cattle rustlers who have been operating in the area over the past few months.  Then they learn that the rustlers have shot a rancher that is a close friend of the local tough guy.  The townsfolk are quick to assemble a lynching party to apprehend the culprit and administer justice at the end of a rope.  All the admonitions of local elder Mr. Davies (Harry Davenport) to leave the matter to the law fall on deaf ears.  Davies sends Gil to appeal to the sheriff but he is out at the ranch and his deputy is one of the more rabid advocates of vigilante justice.  Though Gil has little use for the mob leaders or sympathy for their cause, he and Art join them out of fear that they, as outsiders, may become suspects.

The hastily and illegally sworn-in “posse” goes up into the high mountains to search for the men.  No one is dressed for the intense cold.  The group stumbles upon three men sleeping around a camp fire – their leader, family man Donald Martin (Dana Andrews), a half-witted old man, and a Mexican desperado type (Anthony Quinn).   Although all protest that they have done nothing, they are found in the possession of the victim’s cattle and gun and the townspeople, under the leadership of a self-styled Confederate colonel, are not about to spend much time listening to explanations.  With Jane Darwell as a cackling old vigilante and Leigh Whipper (uncredited!!!?) as a preacher who comes along to pray over the culprits.

This film is an ensemble piece like Stagecoach that follows the character arcs of a number of different types as they face a dilemma together.  Henry Fonda is great, as usual, as the voice of conscience and stand-in for the audience.  This time, however, he starts from a place of seething resentment that makes it all the more resonant when he sees the light. We also get to know the “cowardly” son who can’t quite bring himself to do the wrong thing despite his tormenting macho father, the local clown who finds the situation quite funny, etc.  Dana Andrews is touching as he pleads for someone to look after his wife and small children in one of his better performances.  The black preacher and his reference to his own brother’s lynching bring the film’s moral into its modern American context.

The sense of doom is unrelieved during the 75-minute running time.  There is little action but it is unnecessary.  Donald’s letter to his wife serves as the coda of the piece.  While the text seems totally unlike anything one would expect, it does underscore the film’s powerful message about the reasons we have law to temper the blind fury of the mob mind.

The Ox-Bow Incident was the last film to be nominated for a Best Picture Oscar and in no other category.

Trailer