Man of the West

"IN THE ROLE THAT FITS HIM LIKE A GUN FITS A HOLSTER! GARY COOPER as the MAN OF THE WEST"

1958 1h 40m EN

👍

6.6

SOLID

★6.6TMDB · 246

Western

Synopsis

Spoiler shield

Heading east to Fort Worth to hire a schoolteacher for his frontier town home, Link Jones is stranded with singer Billie Ellis and gambler Sam Beasley when their train is held up. For shelter, Jones leads them to his nearby former home, where he was brought up an outlaw. Finding the gang still living in the shack, Jones pretends to be ready to return to a life crime.

“IN THE ROLE THAT FITS HIM LIKE A GUN FITS A HOLSTER! GARY COOPER as the MAN OF THE WEST”

WhatsApp X Facebook Telegram

Where to watch · US

Amazon VideoRent

Apple TV StoreRent

Google Play MoviesRent

Google Play MoviesBuy

YouTubeBuy

Fandango At HomeBuy

Cast

Gary Cooper
Link Jones
Julie London
Billie Ellis
Lee J. Cobb
Dock Tobin
Arthur O'Connell
Sam Beasley
Jack Lord
Coaley
John Dehner
Claude Tobin
Royal Dano
Trout
Robert J. Wilke
Ponch

Credits

Behind the camera

Director: Anthony Mann
Writers: Reginald Rose
Languages: English
Countries: United States of America

Want more? Switch to Cinephile mode in the header for DP, composer, budget, box office, production companies, keywords, and release history.

Did you know?

Fun facts 🍿

1 / 6

ERA

Did you know

68 years old — a genuine piece of film history.

MoodPlayr · trivia#01

2 / 6

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Directed by Anthony Mann, shot by Ernest Haller. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.

MoodPlayr · trivia#02

3 / 6

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Original score by Leigh Harline. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.

MoodPlayr · trivia#03

4 / 6

CAST

Did you know

Gary Cooper and Julie London and Lee J. Cobb carry the top of the cast.

MoodPlayr · trivia#04

5 / 6

FACT

Did you know

Marketing tagline: "IN THE ROLE THAT FITS HIM LIKE A GUN FITS A HOLSTER! GARY COOPER as the MAN OF THE WEST".

MoodPlayr · trivia#05

6 / 6

WILD

Did you know

IMDB entry: tt0051899 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.

MoodPlayr · trivia#06

Cinephile deep dive

The take

Anthony Mann directs. Ernest Haller behind the camera. Leigh Harline scores. Produced in United States of America. Dialogue in English.

Trivia

Things worth knowing

168 years old — a genuine piece of film history.
2Directed by Anthony Mann, shot by Ernest Haller. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.
3Original score by Leigh Harline. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.
4Gary Cooper and Julie London and Lee J. Cobb carry the top of the cast.
5Marketing tagline: "IN THE ROLE THAT FITS HIM LIKE A GUN FITS A HOLSTER! GARY COOPER as the MAN OF THE WEST".
6IMDB entry: tt0051899 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.

The technical file

Cinematography: Ernest Haller
Original score: Leigh Harline
Costume design: Yvonne Wood
Makeup / hair: Emile LaVigne
Runtime: 100 min · 1h 40m
Aspect ratio (typical): 1.37:1 (Academy)
Status: Released
Original language: EN
IMDB: Man of the West (1958)

Also by

Anthony Mann

Stills · wallpapers

Selected frames

Full-resolution frames — open one to save it as a wallpaper.

Wallpaper

Trailers & featurettes

Watch the pieces

Community reviews

What people are saying

John Chard2017-05-29
★ 8/10
Another Intelligent Western from Anthony Mann. Link Jones is on his way to Fort Worth to hire a schoolteacher, having left his wife and children behind, Link appears to be the epitome of the simple honest man. However, the train he is on is robbed by outlaws, thus meaning that Link's past and his dubious family ties are all careering towards a day of reckoning. This was Anthony Mann's second to last foray into the Western genre, and perhaps his most clinical as regards a structured tale of men as complicated as they are conflicted? I always find with Mann's Westerns that a sense of doom hangs heavy, there are very few directors in Western cinema history who have this knack of filling the viewer with such a pervading feeling of unease. Here we have Gary Cooper as Link, on the surface an amiable man, but the sequence of events see him thrust back into a life he thought had long since gone. The term that a leopard never changes its spots sits rather well, but here we find Mann fleshing out his lead character with an acknowledgement that a former life has passed, with Cooper perfectly transcending this well scripted arc. The striking thing about it though, is that Mann's characters are not the quintessential good versus bad characters, these are just men with their own individual hang ups, they all are fallible human beings, which is something that surely we all can identity with. The acting across the board here is top notch, Cooper is excellent, replacing Mann's stock Western muse, James Stewart, he cements his earthy and identifiable worth wholesale. Lee J. Cobb actually is the glue that holds the film together, his portrayal of Dock Tobin perfectly plays alongside Cooper's emotive showing of Link Jones's confliction. Negatively though, we are asked to believe that Gary Cooper is Lee J. Cobb's nephew, with a difference of just ten years between the two men that has to be a casting error one feels. Still, the film comes highly recommended, the intelligence and dark atmosphere of the piece marks it out for worthwhile emotional investment, whilst Cooper's two main fights (both different) are seriously great cinema. 8.5/10
CinemaSerf2024-12-04
★ 6/10
This is a much grittier western than I am used to from Anthony Mann; giving Gary Cooper much more to get his teeth into than the usual, simple, gun-slinging fayre. He plays a reformed outlaw who is caught up in a train ambush. "Link" escapes with two other passengers and makes his way to an old homestead - only to find it occupied by the men who attacked the train; and that they are his former gang. His uncle "Dock" - Lee J. Cobb - is determined to lead him back down the path of violence. The psychological nature of this gives it a little more depth - sadly, though, neither Cobb, Cooper nor Julie London as "Billie" really gel together or engage convincingly, the dialogue is a bit stodgy and the ending, though quite violent, is poorly predictable. The photography is suitably grand and it's quite excitingly scored, but this is still not the best.