Tonight's Movie: The Hanging Tree (1959) - A Warner Archive Blu-ray Review

Gary Cooper stars as a doctor with a troubled past in the Western THE HANGING TREE (1959), available on Blu-ray from the Warner Archive.

Having recently enjoyed Gary Cooper in the romantic comedy DESIRE (1936), today I turned to THE HANGING TREE, one of the last few films released before Cooper's death in the spring of 1961.

THE HANGING TREE begins in promising fashion, with gorgeous vistas of Washington State, filmed by Ted McCord, while Marty Robbins sings the title song. The score by Max Steiner is notably good.

Between Cooper and the movie's opening, I was predisposed to like the film...but I didn't. I really didn't. It's the rare Western that simply didn't work for me.

Cooper plays Dr. Joseph Frail, who has just set up shop in a mining town when he rescues a young criminal named Rune (Ben Piazza) from a mob. The doctor, who is equal parts kindly and controlling, turns Rune into an indentured servant of sorts.

Shortly thereafter, the townspeople rescue an immigrant named Elizabeth (Maria Schell) who was wandering in the wilderness after her stagecoach was attacked; she's deathly ill from exposure but the doctor nurses her back to health. Elizabeth comes to love the doctor but he pushes her away; he has a dark past involving burning down a house with his wife and brother inside, and he lets people get only so close and no closer.

Elizabeth ends up digging for gold with Rune and an oddball character named Frenchy (Malden). They're successful, but when Frenchy physically attacks Elizabeth and the doctor metes out frontier justice, it precipitates a climactic confrontation in which the townspeople threaten to lynch the doctor.

I like a number of director Delmer Daves' films very much, most recently THE RED HOUSE (1947), but THE HANGING TREE has what I can only describe as an "icky" feel throughout, whether it's Malden's loon having a carbuncle removed from his rear end (really?! did we need that?) or George C. Scott's alcoholic itinerant doom-and-gloom preacher constantly ranting warnings about the doctor.

Part of the movie's problem is its lack of admirable characters. The most ethical man in the movie is the kindly storekeeper played by Karl Swenson (LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE), and unfortunately he has a selfish shrew of a wife (Virginia Gregg) who causes Elizabeth great pain. Young Rune is semi-sympathetic, but otherwise the only character to root for is Elizabeth, and she spends a good chunk of the movie horrendously sunburned and with her eyes bandaged, to the point that in her early scenes I honestly didn't want to look at her and that ghastly sunburn.

I suppose the film is attempting to tell a story of the doctor's redemption, as he helps Elizabeth behind the scenes and finally allows her to love him, but I simply didn't feel anything for him. And if I don't feel anything for a Gary Cooper character, that's a problem.

I know this film has admirers among my fellow Western fans, so other viewers who try the film may well have a different take.  The Warner Archive Blu-ray is a beautiful print which I can recommend for anyone who wants to see it. (There are a handful of odd-looking insert shots with fake backgrounds but I think those would look poor no matter what.) The disc includes the trailer.

Vincent Sherman and Karl Malden are listed by IMDb as having made uncredited directing contributions to THE HANGING TREE. It runs 107 minutes.

For a very good mining town movie I recommend Anthony Mann's excellent THE FAR COUNTRY (1954), a film I loved and look forward to seeing again.

Thanks to the Warner Archive for providing a review copy of this Blu-ray. Warner Archive Blu-rays may be ordered from Amazon or from any online retailers where DVDs and Blu-rays are sold.