Pursued Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.0
Audio		3.5
Extras		0.5
Overall		4.0

Pursued Blu-ray Movie Review

Sibling rivalry and revelry.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman August 29, 2012

There are probably two no more disparate film idioms than the western and film noir. As Martin Scorsese points out in his short but incisive introduction to Pursued included on this Blu-ray as the only supplement, the western tends to take place in the wide open prairie and often deals with black and white issues, literally at times in terms of the colored hats the bad guys and good guys often wore. Film noir on the other hand is often incredibly claustrophobic and deals in moral shades of gray, even if its most notable films usually exploited the gorgeous chiaroscuro of classic black and white cinematography. Pursued is often called “the first noir western”, but some who aren’t easily swayed by convenient labels might find that at the very least an ill fitting description. The film certainly has elements of traditional noir, but it fits a bit more snugly into the “adult western” idiom that was soon to be mined by such directors as Anthony Mann a few years after Pursued debuted in 1947. The film is notable for some incredibly moody and expressive cinematography by the masterful James Wong Howe, and it includes a rousing score by Max Steiner, but the film was written by a man who helped invent several noir tropes with his iconic The Postman Always Rings Twice, Niven Busch. Rather interestingly, Busch also wrote the source novel that became one of the oddest westerns of the late forties, the David O. Selznick Technicolor fever dream Duel in the Sun. Busch fills Pursued with a suitably roiled main character, Jeb Rand (Robert Mitchum), a man haunted by visions of a long ago tragedy which killed his family. But Pursued has no femme fatale luring the hero to his doom. Instead there’s a patently Freudian relationship with Jeb’s kind of adopted sister, the oddly named Thor (Teresa Wright, Busch’s then wife). Like some other notable films with noir-ish element, Pursued is told in flashback, a conceit that lends a certain distance from the proceedings and which also contains a couple of “technical” errors in terms of revealing information that Jeb, who is reminiscing, couldn’t possibly have known about.

Vengeance is a standard trope in many western films, but Pursued turns that idea on its head by having the main villain of the piece, Grant Callum (Dean Jagger), be the one out for revenge, rather than the film’s hero. In fact the hero, Jeb, spends the entire film trying to figure out why exactly he’s been marked for death by Callum and his cohorts. It’s a fascinating topsy-turvy conceit, but it also points out the major flaw of this film: once the real reason for Callum’s single minded crusade against Jeb becomes clear, it really doesn’t hold water. Without spoiling what is frankly not all that shocking of a “secret”, Callum is rather ridiculously visiting the sins of the father on the son, so to speak (once you watch the film, you’ll understand).

The film begins with the grown up Jeb and Thor stowed away at Jeb’s childhood home, where obviously bad things are about to happen. Jeb expects someone to show up soon to kill him, and he’s struggling to figure out what circuitous route led him to this precarious circumstance. That leads into the bulk of the film, where we get an almost Citizen Kane-esque trip back to Jeb’s childhood, replete with a spinster-ish woman (Judith Anderson) who takes Jeb in after his parents have been killed. It turns out the Anderson character, Mrs. Callum, is Grant Callum’s sister-in-law and therein lies the crux of the vengeance story (again, without spilling too many beans). Mrs. Callum’s daughter is Thor and she also has a son, Adam (played by John Rodney as an adult), a boy who doesn’t take kindly to Jeb showing up and becoming part of the family (and not so coincidentally shared heir to Mrs. Callum’s cattle ranch).

We quickly segue to those adult years, where Jeb is forced more or less to fight in the Spanish-American War, and returns a wounded hero, further alienating Adam. In the meantime, Jeb and Thor have divulged their true, decidedly un-sibling, feelings for each other, something which doesn’t seem to throw Mrs. Callum for much of a loop, despite the fact that she considers both of them her children and both of them call her “Ma”. Working away in the background is Grant Callum, who always seems to show up in the back of a scene or the side of the frame to further poison Adam’s relationship with Jeb and to further his own determination to get rid of Jeb for some supposedly “mysterious” reason.

There are parts of Pursued which feel awfully like a westernized version of another quasi-noir, The Red House, and in fact the psychological subtext of Pursued would seem to be a more fitting undertaking for The Red House”s director, Fritz Lang, than for Pursued’s helmsman, Raoul Walsh. Walsh rather interestingly contrasts the interior world of Jeb with the vast expanses of the American Southwest, bringing a decidedly John Fordian look to the film a lot of the time. While the film’s melodrama verges on potboiler status, especially in the middle part of the film when the Jeb – Adam rivalry has some tragic consequences, Busch’s sharp writing and Walsh’s steady hand keep the story moving briskly toward a kind of weirdly bittersweet conclusion.

Performances are uniformly excellent in Pursued, though Mitchum is perhaps a bit too passive seeming at times, as if he were a bit under the influence of that demon weed that got him in so much trouble early in his career. Wright is incredibly appealing in the film, managing to evade some of the more unseemly aspects of an almost sister falling for her almost brother. But the film belongs mostly to Judith Anderson and Dean Jagger. Anderson plays a nicely sympathetic role here (rather as she does in The Red House), and if she’s not especially bursting with “Americana” in her depiction, she brings a sort of hardscrabble pioneer spirit to her Mrs. Callum. Jagger does very well by underplaying Grant, never devolving into a “mustache twirling” villain portrayal, and instead letting a seething anger inform his role. If the reason for that anger is never well developed or at least drastically ill informed, it doesn’t detract in any major way from this exciting and innovative melding of styles and ideas.

Pursued Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Pursued is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Olive Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.35:1. This is one of the nicer looking classic black and white features we've seen from Olive, especially welcome since this film features such incredible cinematography from the legendary James Wong Howe. Black levels are extremely deep and rich, making the looming shadows that hang over this film extremely expressive. Gray scale is extremely well modulated and whites are bright without blooming. The image is generally very sharp and well defined, and fine object detail is excellent in close-ups. The elements do occasionally show some damage, with some minor contrast fluctuations, print through and occasional specks and flecks dotting the landscape. A couple of the opticals also look pretty ragged, at least in comparison to the bulk of this film. But fans of classic black and white films should be very well pleased with this generally outstanding high definition presentation.

Pursued Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Pursued features a lossless DTS-HD Master Audio Mono track which ably supports this film's fairly restrained sound design. The best element here in terms of aural excitement is Max Steiner's rousing score, which is propulsive in several cues but which also features some charming source cues, including a lovely little duet with Mitchum and John Rodney singing "Londonderry Air" to the accompaniment of a delicate music box. Dialogue is well prioritized in the mix and the track, while obviously narrow, has a relatively fulsome sound, with good full bodied midrange and some occasional punch in the low end as well.

Pursued Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Introduction by Martin Scorsese (SD; 2:37). Scorsese talks about the differences between commonly accepted formulations in both the western and noir genres, and how Pursued uses elements of both.

Pursued Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Pursued may not logically hold together, both in terms of its flashback format (how could Jeb have known about some of this information) and in terms of its motives (why should Grant Callum care whether Jeb lives or dies). But the film is still an exciting and unusual combination of elements that normally wouldn't be thought of as making a cohesive filmic "casserole". Buoyed by excellent performances, the gorgeous cinematography of James Wong Howe and a rousing score by Max Steiner, Pursued's high definition presentation also offers great looking video and very good audio. Highly recommended.