Pursued (1947)

Director: Raoul Walsh                                    Writer: Niven Busch
Film Score: Max Steiner                                Cinematography: James Wong Howe
Starring: Robert Mitchum, Teresa Wright, Judith Anderson and Alan Hale

An interesting noir film produced as a western, Pursued was directed by Raoul Walsh who was one of the great directors of the golden age. He made all kinds of films, as most directors did in those days, war films and westerns, but is most remembered today for his gangster films like High Sierra and White Heat. Writer Niven Busch is also onboard who had just finished the controversial Duel in the Sun, but a few years earlier had penned The Postman Always Rings Twice. Here the noir element is mostly in the construction of the story, told in flashback by Robert Mitchum as he waits for his pursuers to catch up to him in his mountain holdout, Teresa Wright at his side as his past finally catches up to him.

The film begins with Mitchum as a boy, his family killed and Judith Anderson saving him. She brings him to her ranch and, along with her son and daughter, attempts to raise him as her own. A few years later Dean Jagger tries to kill him and when Anderson confronts him he says that he wants to kill everyone in Mitchum’s family for what they did to him but neither the audience nor Mitchum knows why. Later Jagger pushes Mitchum into going to war, but instead of dying he comes back a hero. Nothing, however, goes right. Everyone, it seems, is out to kill him and in fighting back he alienates the woman he loves, Teresa Wright. Even when he begs Anderson to tell him about his past, she refuses, and so he never knows the reason why he’s being pursued.

There are some good nighttime scenes in the film, and while James Wong Howe is able to turn the sets shadowy and noirish it’s not something completely new in a western. It’s not until the last half hour of the film that things turn dark, in a figurative as well as literal sense. But by then it’s almost too late. Up until that point it’s mostly a workman like effort for all involved, Walsh, the score by Max Steiner, as well as the actors. In some sense the withholding of the information about Mitchum ceases to be suspenseful and borders on exasperating. Still, it is a satisfying ending when it does come. Mitchum, as always, delivers a great performance and is infinitely watchable.

It’s a very interesting film in terms of the stars involved rather than the plot itself. Alan Hale comes into the second half of the film, a casino owner who offers to take on Mitchum as a partner after he leaves the ranch. Dean Jagger is the embittered old man who engineers revenge on Mitchum by trying to get others to do his dirty work. Wright’s lines are a little simplistic and clichéd early on, giving her character a lack of depth that is unfortunate, especially given the twist at the end. Anderson, however, is perfect. Like her role in Rebecca, she knows the secret and refuses to divulge until the end. Pursued is a solid western with a watchable cast, and a nice surprise ending that just takes a little too long to get to but is enjoyable nonetheless.