Midnight Oil:Movies and More

“Shenandoah” (1965) IMDb with James Stewart playing the lead role provides a less than usual perspective on the American Civil War. The film tells the story of a well ensconced Virginian farming family caught up in the latter part of the Civil War. Stewart, as Charlie Anderson, vehiculates a pragmatic pacificism about a mean and dirty war that now encroaches on his land and his family. Anderson himself is not undergirded by a particularly robust morality about the war nor about his position on pacificism. He finds himself fighting a losing battle even though he technically remains “out of the war”.

The Uncivil War episode offered by Saturday Night at the Movies pairs “Ride with the Devil” (1995) IMDb with this movie classic from 1965. SNAM’s interviewed guests bring out the relationship of “Shenandoah” with American sentiments of the day concerning young American men snatched up into the war in Vietnam and the accompanying anger, confusion and sense of helplessness on the part of those at home.

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See the SNAM preview for The Uncivil War here. Dig in to the background for the films through the Interviews on The Uncivil War with experts on the period.

Catch the video trailer for “Shenandoah” (1965) here.

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Cheyenne Autumn (1964) IMDb , billed as John Ford’s final Western masterpiece, is a film that pricks the conscience of North Americans about “the Indian problem”. Richard Widmark plays the conflicted Captain Archer in charge of retrieving the “delinquent” Cheyenne band who has escaped their deathtrap Indian reservation in the desert. Carroll Baker plays his love interest, a Quaker woman caught between the native culture and the whites. While Sal Mineo, Ricardo Montalban and Dolores Del Rio might not be entirely convincing as Cheyenne tribes people, they get the job done in portraying the plight of the native Americans in a sympathetic light.

"The Ox-Bow Incident" (1943) INDb is quite an unusual Western looking at some of the social, psychological and ethical problems arising from rough and ready frontier justice. Dana Andrews along with Anthony Quinn are ordinary folk who happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time as victims of a lynching party. Henry Fonda and his sidekick Harry Morgan give voice to the doubts that ordinary folk caught up in the mob madness  might have while at the same time being powerless to stop "the course of justice".

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Catch the video preview of "The Ox-Bow Incident" from TVOntario here.

"My Darling Clementine" (1946) INDb embodies the Western à la John Ford. Rough justice on the wild frontier is brought to life with screen legend Henry Fonda playing the real life legend,Wyatt Earp.  Fonda is surrounded by a strong supporting cast that includes Victor Mature (Doc Holliday), Cathy Downs (Clementine), Linda Darnell (Chihuahua) and Walter Brennan (Old Man Clanton). As for the scoop as to what really happened underneath all that dust in Tombstone at the O.K. Corrall, check out the Wikipedia article.

See the video preview from TVO for "My Darling Clementine".

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Catch the video trailer for "My Darling Clementine".