Starring Tyrone Power, Susan Hayward, Hugh Marlowe, Dean Jagger, Edgar Buchanan, Jack Elam, George Tobias

(7-Very Good Film)

Violent. Suspenseful. Strong.

Heir to the family business, Tom Owens (Power), is given his ticket out of Rawhide, an outpost in the west dead in the middle of nowhere. His father sent him there so that Tom would understand the business. Just as Tom’s getting ready to leave, however, four outlaws-Rafe (Marlowe), Tevis (Elam), Gratz (Tobias), and Yancy (Jagger)-who’ve escaped from prison show up and take Tom, along with a woman named Vinnie (Hayward) and her baby, hostage, planning to rob a shipment of gold set to pass through the outpost. Complicating things for everybody is the loose cannon Tevis, ready to kill anybody at any second, including his own running mates. Rawhide is an effective, surprisingly suspenseful western that blends in elements of the home invasion subgenre. On one side, you have the crafty heroes desperately trying to find a way to escape, and on the other side, you have a disparate group of villains ready to combust at any minute. Jack Elam steals the show as a sleazy, cowardly, violent criminal, giving Rawhide its sense of danger and edge. I actually wouldn’t mind a remake.

-Walter Tyrone Howard-

(709)