The Wonderful Country (1959)

Director

• Robert Parrish

Starring

• Robert Mitchum
• Julie London
• Pedro Armendáriz
• Gary Merrill
• Jack Oakie

Last On

16:40-18:40 Tue 21st Jan 2020 115m
Film4

Synopsis

Westerns usually offer positive leading men with a purpose, but here Robert Mitchum is a very passive figure as the gunman for hire, an American who has adopted Mexican ways, slowly learning on which side of the Rio Grande he really belongs. Made by the star's own production company, this introspective journey of discovery has little conventional action (a broken leg sidelines Mitchum for quite a while) but presents an absorbing range of well-detailed characters that are far from the usual western stereotypes. Deftly scripted by Robert Ardrey from the novel by Tom Lea (who appears briefly as the barber), it is slow but ultimately most rewarding, and always superbly photographed.