When the town of Warlock is being terrorised by some wild cowboys, the pillars of the town hire the gunslinger Curt Blaisdell (Henry Fonda), who has made a career of killing troublemakers. Along with his companion, the silver haired Tom Morgan (Anthony Quinn), they now begin to clean up the town, killing everyone who doesn’t obey their rules.

Growing both tired of the terrorizing the town and the new order, one of the cowboys, Johnny Gannon (Richard Widmark), takes on the position as sheriff in the town, but at eighth times less the pay than the gunslingers, and with twice the work, as he not only has to expel the gang, but also the gunslingers.

What makes “Warlock” such a great Western is the complexity of the story. On one side we have a homosexual variation of Wyatt Earp and Doc Holiday in form of Blaisdell and Morgan. On the other side we have an impotent sheriff and finally we have Lily, who is set to revenge the killing of her fiancée. These “three” characters form several triangles: A triangle of love (Blaisdell, Lily, Gannon), a triangle of jealousy (Blaisdell, Lily, Morgan) and a triangle of power (Blaisdell/Morgan, Gannon, Lily).

Being Dmytryk, and considering the HUAC, the political reading of the film is rather interesting. In many ways Gannon reminds one of Terry Malloy in Kazan’s “On the Waterfront”, as he turns on his friends in order to set the record straight. But more interesting is the triangle between the town, the gunslingers and the sheriff. The men of the town are cowards, who rather pay killers to protect them, than take matters into their own hands, and even when the town gets a sheriff, they rather stick by the professionals. The law is openly castrated in order to live in controlled fear rather than in uncontrolled fear.

One of the early "thinking mans" Westerns, and by some hailed as Dmytryk’s masterpiece, "Warlock" is a monumental Western by all accounts, featuring an incredible use of the scope format, by the cinematography of Joseph MacDonald, who also shot films as “My Darling Clementine” and Dmytryk’s “Broken Lance”, and some great performances by especially Widmark and Fonda. A must see.

Henrik Sylow

2.34:1 Original Aspect Ratio

16X9 enhanced
Average Bitrate: 5.80 mb/s
PAL 720x576 25.00 f/s

Aspect Ratio:
Widescreen anamorphic - 2.34:1

Edition Details:
• None

DVD Release Date: February 21, 2005
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