Shane

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Shane

In 1945 Jack Schaefer, an editor and reporter for the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot, wrote and published the story "Rider from Nowhere" in Argosy magazine. Houghton Mifflin released a revised and expanded version of the story as Shane in 1949. Based somewhat on the Johnson Courty War in Wyoming in the early 1890s, it was Schaefer's attempt to reduce the legend of the West to its basic components, and to elevate it to the level of Homeric mythology. It remains a simple tale of a mysterious stranger who descends into the valley in the midst of a conflict. Choosing sides, he removes his godly raiment to mingle with the common people. He crosses a body of water to challenge the enemy and then, after donning again his godly clothes, recrosses the body of water to vanquish the enemy, before ascending from the valley into the night. The novel has sold over 6 million copies in over 80 editions in more than 30 languages. The resulting movie rendition remains the ultimate statement of the legend of the American West.

Young Bob Starrett watched the lone rider make his way slowly across the valley toward the cluster of small farms. "Call me Shane," he said. He was from Arkansas. At 15 he had left his Arkansas home to wander. He did not say where. The Starretts, Joe Marion, and Little Bob, invited Shane to stay on with them as a farm hand. There was something about him, something mysterious and terrifying, but Joe Starrett sensed they had nothing to fear. "He's dangerous, all right … but not to us."

The West was changing. The frontier was gone. Homesteaders were fencing off the land in 80 and 160 acre lots. But the old ways die hard. The Fletcher Brothers, owners of the biggest ranch in the valley, had recently contracted with the Army to supply them with beef, and they needed the range land. This precipitated the conflict between the Fletchers and the farmers that led to several confrontations. Joe Starrett, the strongest willed of the farmers, became their leader, and Shane, sensing the danger of the growing tension, supported Starrett and the farmers.

In two preliminary bouts with the Fletcher cowhands, Shane humiliated them. The first was a fist fight with Chris, a man whom he admired, in which he broke the man's arm. In the second, a barroom brawl at Grafton's Saloon, Shane and Starrett soundly defeated a group of cowhands. In the days following the brawl, young Bob noticed a growing restlessness in Shane, a gradual loss of the serenity that had come over him after he hired on. Fletcher's response to the brawl was to call for a hired gun, Stark Wilson, to come to the valley as their enforcer. When Wilson instigated a face-off with Ernie Wright, and then killed him before Ernie could clear his holster, Shane knew that the conflict had gone far beyond what the farmers could manage. He decided that the time had come to act. "You seem to know about that kind of dirty business," said one of the farmers. "I do," responded Shane.

Fletcher arranged for a meeting with Joe Starrett. But Shane, knowing that it was a trap, knocked Joe unconscious and went to Grafton's alone, followed by Little Bob. Shane killed Wilson and Fletcher in a gun fight. Then he rode out of town, but not out of memory, as the stories of Shane were told and retold for years after in the valley.

The 1953 film version was produced and directed by George Stevens for Paramount. Alan Ladd played Shane, Van Heflin and Jean Arthur played Joe and Marion, and Brandan DeWilde played Little Joey Starrett. Jack Palance played Wilson and Emile Meyer and John Dierkas played the Ryker Brothers, Rube and Morgan.

In this beautifully filmed movie, the basic elements of Schaefer's story are presented as a mythological tale set in the West. The simple American theme of good winning over evil, and the more complex themes of unstated love, the virtue of economic progress, and the inexorable progress of the order of civilization superseding the chaos of the frontier, are unfolded beneath the dominating peaks of the Grand Tetons.

A lone rider descends into the valley. As a stag bends down to drink from a stream and then raises his head, the rider is framed by the antlers as he comes on slowly toward Little Joey, who is watching him. The audience knows that this is no ordinary drifter. Where is he from? "Here and there." Where is he going? "Someplace I've never been." He learns of the conflict between the homesteaders and the Rykers, who own the largest cattle ranch in the valley. The Rykers want the range opened up and the fences torn down. They are standing in the way of progress. The old ways of open range ranching and cattle drives are inefficient in the face of feed lots and fenced off farming. Shane, in a melancholy surrender to changing times, sees his world coming to an end. The open range is gone. The presence of women and children in abundance requires the banishment of guns and the violent way of life in which he flourished. Reluctantly, he sheds the buckskins of the trail and adopts the drab homespun of the farmer and becomes Starrett's farm hand.

Marion, who watched him ride up, is immediately taken by this handsome Apollo who stands in stark contrast to her dull, dependable husband, Joe. Although she is committed to her family and the farm, she is in love with Shane, as he is with her. Their love, however, is unfulfilled passion, chivalric and pure. This upholds Shane's heroic stature and sets him apart from ordinary men. Little Joey is mesmerized by Shane and his obvious proficiency with guns. He loves his parents, seeks their advice and counsel, and obeys their directives. But he worships Shane. He is a fantasy hero, a little boy's dream.

In the confrontations with Ryker's men, Shane at first backs down. This makes some of the farmers question his dependability. To counter this, Shane picks a fight with Chris Calloway, the ranch hand who first challenged him. The fight turns into a brawl in which Joe and Shane defeat a large group of Ryker's men. Ryker, rebuffed angrily when he offers to hire Shane, responds by sending for Wilson, an evil gunfighter. Played by Palance as a morose, quiet spoken, calculating killer, he personifies evil. As he strolls into the darkened saloon, a dog gets up and walks away, adding an exclamation point to this evil presence. Wilson baits and then kills Torrey, one of the farmers. This prompts an attempt at negotiation between Starrett and Ryker, but Shane is worried that the confab is a set up, that Joe will be killed. Shane then knocks Joe unconscious and rides to meet Wilson at the Saloon. In a beautifully choreographed scene underlined by Gordon Willis' point-of-view photography, Shane kills Wilson and both Ryker brothers in a poetic replay of Wilson's murder of Torrey.

In keeping with the innocent-eye narrative of the novel, the film is presented from little Joey's point of view. Many of the scenes were filmed in low angle camera shots, as if the audience were viewing the action from Joey's level. This technique also solved the problem of photographing the short, 5-foot-5 Ladd in fight scenes with the much taller Heflin and Ben Johnson. The low camera angle makes Ladd look much taller. Joey is presented as an observer in most pivotal scenes, and as such, Ladd is filmed in a manner that depicts Shane as a god-like figure, looming over the action of the story.

Both the novel and the film succeed in transforming the Western legend into a pure and simple tale of the triumph of good over evil. Shane is presented as an incongruous hero, out of his element, in desperate search for a new existence. His world is ending. He tries farming, but he cannot change what is. He appears hopelessly out of place in the family scenes and in the burial scene. He is forced to revert to an existence he realizes cannot exist anymore. He is an ambiguous hero who desires to eliminate violence and killing from the valley, but he must kill to accomplish his objective. Then he must leave the valley. "There is no living with a killing," he tells Joey, "It's like a brand."

Shane's desperate struggle to escape his past thus ends tragically. In order to save the lifestyle he sought to embrace, he was forced to revert to his past life. "I tried it. It didn't work for me," he explains to Joey. As Shane rides off, Joey begs him to come back. "Shane, come back!" he yells into the night. It is a plaintive cry for a return of his lost innocence, of his fantasy hero, and of his hero's way of life. Before civilization came to the West, life was simple and predictable, pure and unambiguous. Personal honor and the law of the gun marked the difference between right and wrong. In the final analysis, Shane appeals to that nostalgic longing in urban society for a time long past when life's options remained open, where men were dominant, and where ethical gray areas did not exist. The invocation of a person's moral code was abrupt and final.

This is a towering, landmark Western film. It is the final statement of the legend of the West, reduced to its simplest components and elevated to the status of myth. Yet it is flawed. It is slow and pretentious; it is studied and self-conscious. It lacks spontaneity. At times, the understated dialogue and suggested themes of unfulfilled love, hero worship, male bonding, and the adherence to moral codes seem stagey and lacking in vitality. But these are trivial points. After Shane, the Hollywood Western became less and less viable as a genre and, except for The Searchers (1957), it remains unmatched in stature or influence by any later Western films.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences nominated Shane for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Writing (screen adaptation by A.B. Guthrie). Brandon DeWilde and Jack Palance were both nominated for the Best Supporting Actor award. Loyal Griggs won an Oscar for his superb color photography. Shane was remade by Malpaso Productions in 1985 as Pale Rider, starring Clint Eastwood as a lonely preacher riding in to help a group of miners. It is a gritty film and in places almost a frame by frame clone of the original. It marked Eastwood's return to the Western genre after a nine year absence.

—James R. Belpedio