Springfield Rifle
Gary Cooper's return to the western following his Academy Award-winning performance in Fred Zinnemann's
High Noon (1952) plays like a superhero origin tale, forestalling the first appearance of the eponymous
Springfield Rifle (1952) for seventy-five of the film's ninety-five minutes in order to show the need for the revolutionary breach-loading ordnance as a game-changer in the American Civil War. Prior to 1864, combatants in the War Between the States made use of "muzzle loaders" not greatly different than what Davy Crockett had employed at the Siege of the Alamo thirty years earlier. The single-shot musket allowed the shooter only 3 to 4 volleys per minute, depending on the speed of reloading, whereas the Springfield (a modification of a previous rifled musket) permitted 8 to 10 shots, giving a company of fifty men the firing power of five times that number. Adapting Sloan Nibley's original story, Charles Marquis Warren (later a producer on the
Gunsmoke TV series) and Frank Davis (Oscar®-nominated screenwriter of
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, 1945) place the rifle's combat debut within the context of wartime espionage and counter-espionage, at a point in the conflict's timeline when the Confederacy maintained a strong advantage over the Union.
Legally separated from wife Sandra Shaw (the false Fay Wray awakened and dropped screaming to her death by
King Kong in 1933), licking his wounds from a soured affair with actress Patricia Neal (his costar in
The Fountainhead, 1949), suffering from stomach ulcers, and certain that any assignment post-
High Noon was sure to be a disappointment, Gary Cooper came to
Springfield Rifle with little enthusiasm. The actor's cynicism at least worked in favor of his casting as a decorated Union officer who, to ferret out a traitor within his own ranks, submits to an ersatz court-martial branding him as a coward and a Southern-sympathizing "copperhead" and sending him back into civilian life as an ostensible gun-for-hire. Falling in with privateer David Brian's cadre of raiders, renegades, and Kansas Jayhawkers (whose number include Lon Chaney, Jr., Fess Parker, and Alan Hale, Jr.), who are making a handsome profit stealing Union horses to sell to the Confederacy, Cooper's anguished double agent must risk exposure by his new-found comrades while brooking the contumely of his former blue bellies (among them Phil Carey, Guinn "Big Boy" Williams, and Martin Milner) and the disillusionment of dutiful wife Phyllis Thaxter.
Clearly inspired by Anthony Mann's superior
Winchester '73 (1950),
Springfield Rifle is not in the same league but remains a rousing and suspenseful programmer for the duration of its running time. If Cooper lacks a worthy costar, the supporting cast of contract players nonetheless keeps the viewer guessing as to whom the protagonist can trust, bestowing upon this oater the nervous energy of a crime thriller. Director André De Toth and his screenwriters complicate the "inside man" plot by having Cooper encounter sympathetic soldiers on the Confederate side, men willing to extend him the kindness denied him by his Union brethren. The filmmakers also stage an action setpiece near the hour mark that dispenses with two major characters (imagine
White Heat's (1949) Cody Jarrett dying before the third act and leaving control of his outlaw gang to undercover cop Edmond O'Brien). One likes to think Cooper, so used to embodying taciturn western heroes, appreciated the opportunity to play a character who must appear villainous; the 51 year-old actor enjoys two extended fight scenes, the second of which ends with him slashing an "Arkansas toothpick" across the buttocks of scoundrel Lon Chaney as a caution against mistreating his mount.
Shot on location in Lone Pine, California, and on the desert floor below snow-capped Mount Whitney,
Springfield Rifle suspended filming temporarily when mushroom clouds appeared on the horizon from atomic testing in Nevada. (Eight atomic devices were detonated as part of Operation Tumbler-Snapper during the two months of location shooting, between April and June 1952.) Star Cooper mitigated the effects of location tedium by fortifying himself with Jack Daniels and regaling cast and crew at the end of each day with Shakespearean recitations. Cut free in the summer of 1952, he headed to Alaska for bear hunting, after which he spent time abroad, traveling to Fiji to make Mark Robson's
Return to Paradise (1953) and to Mexico for Hugo Fregonese's
Blowing Wild (1953) with Barbara Stanwyck, Henry Hathaway's
Garden of Evil (1954) with Susan Hayward and Richard Widmark, and Robert Aldrich's
Vera Cruz (1954) with Burt Lancaster. The actor returned Stateside to star in Otto Preminger's
The Court-Martial of Billy Mitchell (1955) and returned to the western genre in Anthony Mann's
Man of the West (1958) before his death from cancer in 1961.
by Richard Harland Smith
Sources:
Gary Cooper: American Hero by Jeffrey Meyers (Cooper Square Press, 2001)
Gary Cooper by David Thomson (Faber & Faber, 2010)
Historical Dictionary of the U.S. Army by Jerold E. Brown (Greenwood Publishing Group, 2001)
Springfield Rifle
The Gary Cooper historical actioner
Springfield
Rifle (1952) has recently made its DVD debut bundled in
Gary Cooper: The Signature Collection from Warner
Home Video. The firearm of the title is much more a
final-act device than the film's focus, which deals with
the birth of military espionage. It's not top-shelf Cooper,
but it's a serviceable enough vehicle from the latter phase
of the laconic lead's career, and his fan base should be
pleased by its arrival.
The scenario by Frank Davis and Charles Marquis Warren
concerns the struggles of the Union command to protect its
drives of much-needed Cavalry horses through the Colorado
wilds from the predations of bands of jayhawkers seeking to
provide the stock to the Confederacy. The rebels can't have
their intimate knowledge of the herd movements without
inside information, but Washington finds it unseemly to
descend to the level of developing counter-intelligence.
Certain officers in the field, however, act on the gravity
of the situation by staging a covert ruse. Major Lex
Kearney (Cooper) a Virginian whose Southern sentiments are
open to question, is transferred to the outpost in the
hopes that he can lead a drive past the looters, but turns
rather than fight once confronted by them on the trail.
He's summarily court-martialed for cowardice, and the
combination of his experience and his apparent bitterness
gets the attention of Archie McCool (David Brian), a local
rancher who reveals himself as the ringleader of the
rustlers.
Kearney's disgrace, as it develops, was staged solely to
gain access to the cabal. The downside is that fact is
shared with only a select few, and those on the outside
include Kearney's frustrated wife (Phyllis Thaxter), who
can't understand why he won't come home and deal with the
crisis presented by their young son's having run away in
humiliation. It's her presence that ultimately tips
McCool's mole to the subterfuge, and places Kearney in
jeopardy of execution as a traitor. With the help of the
loyalists among the troops, and a convenient cache of the
then-new chamber-loading rifle that would "turn one man
into five, and fifty into an army," Kearney is able to
confront the rustlers, and the real betrayer, in a
well-staged final confrontation.
Director Andre de Toth bears a certain amount of cult cache
for efforts like
House of Wax (1953) and
The
Gunfighter (1950), but the workmanlike job that he put
forth here was not particularly remarkable. Notables in the
supporting cast include Lon Chaney, Jr. providing dimwitted
bluster as McCool's head lackey; as well as Paul Kelly and
Phillip Carey for keeping the audience guessing in their
respective roles as Kearney's immediate superior and chief
accuser.
Warner's mastering job on the DVD does no disservice to the
rich palette of Edwin Dupar's cinematography, but the disc
is bare-bones in terms of extras. In addition to
Springfield Rifle,
Gary Cooper: The Signature
Collection also contains
Sergeant York (1941),
The Fountainhead (1949),
Dallas (1950) and
The Wreck of the Mary Deare (1959).
For more information about
Springfield Rifle, visit
Warner Video. To
order
Springfield Rifle (which is only available as
part of
Gary Cooper: The Signature Collection), go
to
TCM
Shopping.
by Jay S. Steinberg
TCM Remembers Andre de Toth
Andre De Toth, the director and writer behind such memorable genre films as
Pitfall (1948), a film noir,
The Indian Fighter (1955), a Western,
Play Dirty (1968), a war thriller, and arguably the best 3-D movie ever made,
House of Wax (1953), died on October 27 of an aneurysm in his Burbank home. He was
believed to be 89, although biographical references to his birth year vary
from 1910 to 1913.
Born in Mako, Hungary to the son of a civil engineer, De Toth showed an
early artistic bent, having his first exhibit of paintings and sculpture at
age 14 and seeing his first play produced at age 18. After obtaining his law
degree from the University of Budapest, he began acting, writing and working
as a cameraman for cinematographer Istvan Eiben. In 1939, he went to
England, where he worked as a second unit director for Alexander Korda on
The Thief of Bagdad and other films. De Toth immigrated to Hollywood
in the early '40s, and worked with Korda on
The Jungle Book (1942)
and several other films.
He made his Hollywood directing debut with the 1943 feature,
Passport to Suez,
a propaganda thriller about the Nazis wanting to bomb the Suez Canal.
Impressed with his ability, Harry Cohn, head of Columbia Pictures, put the
director under contract for one film and the result,
None Shall Escape
(1944), launched his Hollywood career. This tense, sensitive drama about a Nazi officer made to
examine his actions was fascinating in its structure: Set after the war's
end, the film centers around the trial of a Nazi butcher, Wilhelm Grimm
(Alexander Knox), in Poland and makes excellent use of flashbacks illustrating
the prosecution's testimony to form the bulk of the film. In a way, the film
predicted the Nuremberg Trials after the war.
de Toth earned considerable critical acclaim with the taut, intense noir thriller
Pitfall
(1948) which he co-wrote. Starring Dick Powell, Lizabeth Scott and
Raymond Burr, this story of a bored insurance salesman who embarks on an
affair because he feels stifled in his picture-perfect home (a devoted wife, son,
nice house, successful career, etc.) was
striking as one of the first films to examine the American dream gone sour.
De Toth followed that with a shared Oscar nomination with William Bowers for
Best Original Motion Picture Story for
The Gunfighter (1950), a
haunting character study of a killer (Gregory Peck) trying to live down his
past.
His biggest commercial hit came with
House of Wax (1953), the movie
that launched Vincent Price's horror film career and is still regarded as
the best of all three-dimensional films to be released during that period.
Unlike other directors who seemed to be dabbling with a new technique, De
Toth emphasized character and plot over the special effects: Price was a
sculptor rebuilding his wax figure collection (destroyed by fire) by making statues out of
his murder victims. The one-eyed de Toth was an odd choice to helm a 3-D
film as he could not experience the stereoscopic process, having lost an eye
in his youth, but he persevered and it was the most successful 3-D film of
its day.
De Toth followed that hit with some fine films:
Crime Wave (1954), a
hostage thriller that boasts some fine performances by Sterling Hayden and
Gene Nelson and excellent location shooting on the streets of Los Angeles;
The Indian Fighter (1955) an exciting Kirk Douglas vehicle about a
wagon master leading his train through rough territory that won accolades
for depicting the Native Americans with more depth than contemporary
directors; and
Day of the Outlaw (1959), the stark, stylish, low
budget western about an outlaw (Burl Ives) and his gang taking over taking a
small town and matching wits with one of its citizens (Robert Ryan). For
many, this film best articulated many of the recurring themes in De Toth's
work that would be evaluated only decades later by film scholars: survival,
betrayal, the capacity for evil and complexities of human relationships.
In the early sixties film work became increasingly scarce for De Toth and he found himself
relegated to directing for television:
Maverick,
77 Sunset
Strip and
The Westerner. Tired of the limitations he was finding
in Hollywood, De Toth headed to Europe in the '60s, where he found work as
an uncredited consultant and location scout on David Lean's extravagant
Lawrence of Arabia (1962). He directed a few films abroad, the best
of which was the World War II action film
Play Dirty (1968),
starring Michael Caine, and then he more or less retired from active
filmmaking. It was not until recently that De Toth began to receive
critical recognition for his entertaining body of work. The last few years
have seen several retrospectives and he enjoyed a renewed popularity at film
festivals from Scotland to San Francisco. His contributions to film were
recognized with the 1995 life achievement prize by the Los Angeles Film
Critics Association and the publication of his autobiography,
Fragments:
Portraits From the Inside, as well as an interview book,
De Toth on De Toth,
by Anthony Slide. De Toth was married for a time to Veronica Lake
(1944-1952) with whom he had two children. He is survived by his wife, Ann
Green.
by Michael T. Toole
![Lon Chaney [jr.], Pete Elm](https://prod-images.tcm.com/Master-Profile-Images/LonChaneyJr.jpg?w=200)
