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Released by: Eureka Entertainment
Released on: December 7, 2015
Director: André De Toth
Cast: Robert Ryan, Tina Louise, Burl Ives, Alan Marshal, Venetia Stevenson, David Nelson, Nehemiah Persoff, Elisha Cook Jr., Dabbs Greer
Year: 1959
The Movie:
Blaise Starrett (Robert Ryan) has a twofold interesting in shooting Hal Crane (Alan Marshal) dead: 1) Hal is married to Helen (Tina Louise), the woman Blaise loves; and 2) Hal and his fellow ranchers have been surrounding their properties with barbed wire fencing, thus preventing Starrett's cattle from roaming freely throughout the area. On the day the two men decide to shoot it out, a cavalry of criminals headed by Jack Bruhn (Burl Ives) rides into town, takes everyone's guns, and holds the townspeople hostage until they can secure safe passage away from the pursuing military. Finally, Blaise convinces them he knows a route through the mountains and leads them on a perilous journey into the snowy wastes.
Day of the Outlaw is three movies rolled into one, not one of which gets its proper due. First, there's the opening story concerning Blaise and Hal's rivalry. Then there's the tale about a town held hostage, which plays out like a bad episode of Your Worst Nightmare set in the old West. And finally there's the story of a wintery trek. The various plotlines don't quite gel, a problem exacerbated by a piling on of illogicity. It doesn't help that the characters aren't particularly likeable or approachable. Now, none of this means that the performances are bad; they most certainly aren't, with Ryan, Louise, Ives, and Dabbs Greer standing out. On the plus side, the film features a nasty streak, from the operation to remove the bullet in Bruhn's chest to the near-rape of the town's women. In the wake of the success that Hammer had had adding blood and gore to its entries in the horror genre (The Curse of Frankenstein, 1957; Horror of Dracula, 1958), filmmakers in other genres followed suit. Western directors were no exception, with André De Toth doling out the blood here with reckless abandon. De Toth was no stranger to violence; he had helmed horror's first 3D film, House of Wax (starring horror great Vincent Price), back in 1953. But he wasn't the director to pull the various elements in Day of the Outlaw together, either, with the result that it's a mishmash, albeit one beloved by many a modern critic.
Adding a touch of realism, one thing De Toth did do right was choose to shoot much of the film on location near Mount Bachelor, Oregon, a lonely shield volcano topped by a stratovolcano. The image of the volcano's broken caldera provided many of the film's background shots and was a great choice of locations, lending the film an air of authenticity and primal beauty.
Video/Audio/Extras:
Day of the Outlaw hits Blu-ray with an MPEG-4 AVC encode in 1080p high definition, featuring an aspect ratio of 1.85:1, courtesy of British distributor Eureka's The Masters of Cinema Series. The transfer was clearly sourced from rights holder MGM and contains a requisite amount of detail and adequate black levels. There's no crush, and dirt and debris is kept to a minimum. Grain looks fairly natural, and it never interferes with the detail, which looks its best in exterior shots, where the snowy landscape—dotted with trees, mountains, and rocky crags—is most clearly defined. Faces and fibrous material also fare well. Unfortunately, there are also occasional shots in which detail is lacking, and there's a slight flicker in a couple of shots. Thankfully, these are not prevalent and last only a few seconds on the rare occasions they appear. Overall the image is clean and efficient, with a mostly pleasing palette of blacks, grays, and whites.
For the soundtrack, Eureka has opted for an English LPCM Mono track filtered through both the left and right channels. The track is solid enough, with a decent balance of score and dialogue. When dialogue is spoken, it takes precedence, though sometimes words are a little difficult to make out. Eureka has included optional English subtitles for the deaf and hearing impaired that actually name the speaker when dialogue is spoken from off screen. Alexander Courage's original score is contained on a secondary track, which also includes the sound effects and ambient noises.
Day of the Outlaw is surprisingly sparse in the extras department for a Masters of Cinema release. There's an interview with French film historian and director Bertrand Tavernier that runs 26 minutes in length. The director speaks in his native language, and Eureka provides optional subtitles for speakers whose primary language is English. Tavernier focuses mostly on director De Toth, though he does dissect who most likely wrote the script (hint: it wasn't Philip Yordan). He also addresses the shooting location, which was chosen by De Toth because it didn't look like a Hollywood set and was relatively remote. Though brief, the interview is packed with information broken only for the infrequent insert from the film.
The Final Word:
Day of the Outlaw is a stark, violent western, part of a new breed made in the wake of the success of Hammer Horror, which ushered in an era of increased sex and gore. It doesn't entirely work, thanks to one implausibility piled upon another in a script that forgot the plot in favor of an extended premise. None of that affects the acting or the action, and De Toth's direction makes the most of the remote locations. The image on Eureka's Blu-ray looks good, with nice detail and black levels and no crush. Sound is also fairly unproblematic. Extras are sparse, but for people who see this as one of Hollywood's greatest westerns, the presentation is certainly worthy of an upgrade.
Christopher Workman is a freelance writer, film critic, and co-author (with Troy Howarth) of the Tome of Terror horror film review series. Volume 2 of that series (covering the 1930s) is currently available from Midnight Marquee Press, Inc.
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