The Naked Hills - Full Length Western with Marcia Henderson скачать в хорошем качестве

The Naked Hills - Full Length Western with Marcia Henderson

Marcia Henderson looking as lovely as ever.. Tracy Powell, an Indiana farmer, gets the gold fever and heads for Stockton, California in 1849. There, he abandons his first partner, Bert Killian, and teams up with Sam Wilkins, a claim jumper employed by Willis Haver. Six years later, Powell returns to Indiana and his sweetheart, Julie. They marry and he tries farming again but, on the night their son is born, he takes off again searching for gold. This time he heads for the hills with an inveterate prospector, Jimmo McCann. A decade later, the two are still hunting for their big strike when McCann is killed in an accident. Powell returns home with news of a big strike but the deserted Julie will have nothing to do with him. His friend Killian will not believe him but Haver, now a banker gives him a small loan and then beats him out of his claim. Many years pass before he comes home, now sixty-years-old, and this time, his wife and son open their home to him. But he vows to go prospecting come next spring. 'The Naked Hills' is an Allied Artists picture, and it follows the very distinctive format of that low-budget studio: at the very beginning of the movie, we see a clip of the most exciting scene in the picture, shown out of sequence as a teaser ... even though we don't yet know who these characters are, nor their relationships to each other. After this scene, the opening credits roll, and then the film proper begins. Eventually, we reach the teaser scene in the middle of the movie, at its proper point in the plot line ... at which point we sit through a verbatim repeat of this scene exactly as it ran in the teaser. Other Allied Artists films that use this structure are 'Indestructible Man' and cult favourite 'Attack of the 50-Foot Woman'. I really dislike this teaser structure: it always confuses the audience at the beginning of the film ... and when we reach the most exciting scene in the picture, we already know what will happen because we've seen it before. In 'The Naked Hills', the teaser scene is a violent confrontation between meek hero David Wayne and tough villains Jim Backus and Keenan Wynn. 'The Naked Hills' is a very low-key (and low-budget) western, extremely downbeat, with little emphasis on gunplay or the usual elements that appeal to horse-opera audiences. Wayne plays a family man obsessed with striking gold. He stakes a claim in the middle of the desert, which is his first mis-stake: any good prospector knows that the best place to look for gold is near running water, just as the best place to look for silver is above the timber line. Wayne incurs the anger of local tyrant Jim Backus. Backus was an underrated actor, now sadly remembered for 'Gilligan's Island' and Mr Magoo instead of for his dramatic roles. This film is the only one in which I've seen Backus play a villain, and he's excellent. Keenan Wynn is good too, as Backus's goon, but in Wynn's case the casting is no surprise. The most pleasant aspect of 'The Naked Hills' comes during the opening credits, when James Barton sings a Western ballad. Barton was a Broadway star who never quite caught on in films; among his other stage roles, he starred in the musical 'Paint Your Wagon', in the role Lee Marvin did in the film. As a character type, Barton was similar to Walter Huston ... and had a similar singing voice. Narrating this story of Wayne's useless life is Denver Pyle who comes west with Wayne, makes a small stake and then starts a dry goods business. He is carrying a torch the Statue Of Liberty couldn't hold for Marcia Henderson. In many ways he's the most touching character in the film. And James Barton who originated the part of a hard rock miner starring in Paint Your Wagon on Broadway essentially takes that character over to The Naked Hills. Watch in the end how Wayne's character has morphed into Barton. Most moving scene in the film is Wayne trying to nurse his dying mule back to health. He's so cut himself off from the world that the only living thing he has any relationship with is that pack animal. It's some of the best acting David Wayne did in his whole career. Probably a large budget would not necessarily have helped The Naked Hills. But a solid cast and a wonderful story put this memorable film over. It will linger with you long after you've seen it.