When "The Bravados" was released in 1958, movie theatres, and especially television were saturated in Westerns.
It's hard to believe now how many one-hour and half-hour series there were on TV, literally dozens; "Cheyenne", "Sugarfoot", "Gunsmoke", "Maverick", "Bat Masterson", "Wells Fargo", "Wagon Train" and "Wanted Dead or Alive" just to name some that had to come up with a new story every episode. I think "The Bravados" ended up being an expensive, Cinemascope version of those small-scale dramas rather than an expansive, big-themed Western such as Ford's "The Searchers" or Wyler's "The Big Country".
Jim Douglas (Gregory Peck) and his single-minded hunt for the four men he thinks raped and murdered his wife is not exactly one you could build a lot of a lot of laughs into, but everything about the film reinforces the grimness. The film was shot on location in Mexico in for the most part scrubby, spikey, hard-looking country with shadowed canyons and dark hills.
Even the scenes in Rio Arriba, the town where much of the story takes place, were shot in dark rooms. Sure Thomas Edison hadn't run the wires to those parts yet, so candles and lanterns would have been the only light source, but night in this movie demonstrates why people of that era generally went to bed hours earlier than they do now.
The bad guys are bad. Steven Boyd, who could usually breath charisma into a villain, is just unpleasant here.
According to biographer Lynn Haney, Gregory Peck wasn't fond of this movie. He thought he was unrelentingly grim. Haney also told how the cast and crew were in awe of him, but he had his wife with him on location and seemed aloof. However co-star Joan Collins thought he was just shy around strangers. They became friends when he challenged her to be a more daring horse rider. It worked.
"The Bravados" has a powerful score with a pounding main theme. The score is credited to Lionel Newman, but there is the strong influence of his famous brother Alfred. Strikingly so when the score gets spiritual as Jim Douglas feels the need for atonement and visits Rio Arriba's oversized cathedral.
"The Bravados" has an anticlimatic resolution unlike the many famous Westerns that had preceded it, but it embraced a new introspection that was pervading all drama, Westerns included, going forward.
It's hard to believe now how many one-hour and half-hour series there were on TV, literally dozens; "Cheyenne", "Sugarfoot", "Gunsmoke", "Maverick", "Bat Masterson", "Wells Fargo", "Wagon Train" and "Wanted Dead or Alive" just to name some that had to come up with a new story every episode. I think "The Bravados" ended up being an expensive, Cinemascope version of those small-scale dramas rather than an expansive, big-themed Western such as Ford's "The Searchers" or Wyler's "The Big Country".
Jim Douglas (Gregory Peck) and his single-minded hunt for the four men he thinks raped and murdered his wife is not exactly one you could build a lot of a lot of laughs into, but everything about the film reinforces the grimness. The film was shot on location in Mexico in for the most part scrubby, spikey, hard-looking country with shadowed canyons and dark hills.
Even the scenes in Rio Arriba, the town where much of the story takes place, were shot in dark rooms. Sure Thomas Edison hadn't run the wires to those parts yet, so candles and lanterns would have been the only light source, but night in this movie demonstrates why people of that era generally went to bed hours earlier than they do now.
The bad guys are bad. Steven Boyd, who could usually breath charisma into a villain, is just unpleasant here.
According to biographer Lynn Haney, Gregory Peck wasn't fond of this movie. He thought he was unrelentingly grim. Haney also told how the cast and crew were in awe of him, but he had his wife with him on location and seemed aloof. However co-star Joan Collins thought he was just shy around strangers. They became friends when he challenged her to be a more daring horse rider. It worked.
"The Bravados" has a powerful score with a pounding main theme. The score is credited to Lionel Newman, but there is the strong influence of his famous brother Alfred. Strikingly so when the score gets spiritual as Jim Douglas feels the need for atonement and visits Rio Arriba's oversized cathedral.
"The Bravados" has an anticlimatic resolution unlike the many famous Westerns that had preceded it, but it embraced a new introspection that was pervading all drama, Westerns included, going forward.