by Paul Costello
Before I continue, I’m going do this:
SPOILER WARNING!! GO WATCH THIS FILM BEFORE CONTINUING!!
Vigilantism is a complex beast. When it comes in the form of a traumatised billionaire with a cape, it’s the most awesome thing ever; when it’s a mob brandishing a noose, it’s much less so. Obviously these are two very different scenarios (and the fact that one is way more plausible than the other may be a big reason in the differing reception), but they both rely on a reaction to crime that everyone can understand, though few would have the gumption to pursue: why doesn’t someone just deal with it now? The Ox-Bow Incident is a film that looks at a story of the latter.
Before I continue, I’m going do this:
SPOILER WARNING!! GO WATCH THIS FILM BEFORE CONTINUING!!
Vigilantism is a complex beast. When it comes in the form of a traumatised billionaire with a cape, it’s the most awesome thing ever; when it’s a mob brandishing a noose, it’s much less so. Obviously these are two very different scenarios (and the fact that one is way more plausible than the other may be a big reason in the differing reception), but they both rely on a reaction to crime that everyone can understand, though few would have the gumption to pursue: why doesn’t someone just deal with it now? The Ox-Bow Incident is a film that looks at a story of the latter.
Director William A. Wellman loved the original novel by Walter Van Tilburg Clark, though had a tough time in trying to get it made. Between acquiring the rights from people who insisted in casting Mae West and getting studios to back a story with such apparently inflammatory ideas, it was such an uphill struggle to bring the film to audiences that 20th Century Fox didn’t even release it until two years after completion. A hell of a way to treat a film that would go on to be nominated for the Best Picture Oscar, in retrospect perhaps the only real competition for the film that won, Casablanca.
It seems like such an odd notion that both 20th Century Fox and the censors at the Production Code Administration would have such struggle with a film that is effectively a defence of conscience and justice by law. However, The Ox-Bow Incident walks a murky trail to reach its conclusions. Its characters have an idea of justice, of acting for the perceived good, that drives them forward, but it’s the need to act (and quickly) that becomes the most important aspect of their endeavour. And it’s tough to find a character that can really be taken as a moral centre, as someone who can be the example of goodness that everyone follows.
It seems like such an odd notion that both 20th Century Fox and the censors at the Production Code Administration would have such struggle with a film that is effectively a defence of conscience and justice by law. However, The Ox-Bow Incident walks a murky trail to reach its conclusions. Its characters have an idea of justice, of acting for the perceived good, that drives them forward, but it’s the need to act (and quickly) that becomes the most important aspect of their endeavour. And it’s tough to find a character that can really be taken as a moral centre, as someone who can be the example of goodness that everyone follows.
The closest we get, as is demanded by classic Hollywood, comes in the form of Gil, played by Henry Fonda. Essentially a good man (although still caught up in the mob side for his own reasons), he is one of the few men able to see the inherent danger in their actions, and is ultimately the one to make the film’s point on Man’s conscience the most overt. It’s not often someone tries to clearly express the need for conscience in such a way, to lay out in as concise a manner why there must be, in everyone, something that keeps them in check. That these words come on the back of terrible deeds that cannot be undone gives them more potency, presenting us with a glimpse into what it could be to ignore the words we hear.
(Also, note the comment shortly into the video put there by whomever uploaded the clip.)
Setting the scene: The posse is back in the saloon, drinking in silence, clearly having trouble coming to terms with what they have done. After one of their number leaves to deal with his guilt in his own way, Gil tells Art to read the letter their own victim wrote to his wife. Unable to read it, Art declines, so Gil reads it aloud for all to hear…
(Also, note the comment shortly into the video put there by whomever uploaded the clip.)
Setting the scene: The posse is back in the saloon, drinking in silence, clearly having trouble coming to terms with what they have done. After one of their number leaves to deal with his guilt in his own way, Gil tells Art to read the letter their own victim wrote to his wife. Unable to read it, Art declines, so Gil reads it aloud for all to hear…
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