Tonight's Movie: Backlash (1956)
BACKLASH is well-executed but fairly standard Saturday morning shoot-'em-up fare. The film begins and ends with a gunfight, and the pace doesn't let up much in between.Richard Widmark and Donna Reed, searching for his father and her husband, become mixed up with gunfighters, a hunt for missing gold, battles with Apaches, and a range war. There's a fairly abbreviated love-hate romance between Widmark and Reed, and that's pretty much the plot of this fast-paced film, which runs 84 minutes.
It's not a great movie, but it's entertaining, and particularly worth seeing if you're a Widmark fan.
The supporting cast includes John McIntire, Harry Morgan, Edward Platt, and Barton MacLane.
BACKLASH was directed by John Sturges and filmed in Technicolor at Old Tucson, which I visited a handful of times over the course of the 1980s.
The movie has been released on video in the past but does not appear to be easily available. It can also be seen on cable on AMC.
November 2012 Update: BACKLASH will be available on DVD in the Western Horizons collection from the TCM Vault in February 2013.
July 2020 Update: BACKLASH will be released on Blu-ray by Kino Lorber in August 2020.
August 2020 Update: My review of the BACKLASH Blu-ray may be found here.
posted by Laura @ 9:09 PM
2 Comments:
You seem to be into Westerns lately:)
I waited for and currently have checked out from the library the Deanna Durbin Sweetheart Pack. Two discs with 6 movies ranging from her first movie in 1936 to one of her last in 1947. I have watched three so far and my favorite at this point is First Love with a young, handsome Robert Stack in his first movie. Kind of a modern take on Cinderella.
Yes, I was just counting up and the total for the last week was four Westerns and two romantic comedies (grin). I usually am not able to see *quite* this many films in one week, but my work has been a bit slower than usual, plus we're making the most of the holiday weekend for some movie R&R. :)
I just saw Robert Stack yesterday in a BIOGRAPHY on Carole Lombard. It was fascinating that his family knew her when he was a teenager, before he was an actor. (I have my own story to tell about Lombard's childhood and her relatives at the Kimberly Crest estate in Redlands, but that's another story for another day...)
Anyway, I just checked and my dad has FIRST LOVE on video so I'll have to be sure to watch it. I have a couple other films from his Durbin collection here in my "watch" pile.
Hope you're having an enjoyable weekend!
Best wishes,
Laura
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