RAWHIDE (1950) What hostages in the old West get trying to escape

Bad guys holding good guys hostage as they wait for a big cash payoff is a familiar plot (KEY LARGO, THE DESPERATE HOURS), but always an arresting one. In RAWHIDE – a taut and character-driven film that blends the leathery trappings of an oater with the claustrophobic atmosphere and intensity of a noir-suspense film – the action unfolds at a remote swing station for the trans-continental stagecoach. Routine life and work are disrupted by the arrival of a gang of baddies who, while waiting to get their hands on a shipment of gold, find their hands full instead with wily hostages. The suspense is intense, even after repeated viewings, and the acting is fine. Tyrone Power and Susan Hayward handle the heroics with minimal melodramatics. Hugh Marlowe has a field day playing type as the head villain Zimmerman (although one wonders how such an articulate, obviously well-educated man would run with homicidal idiots, let alone have a Jewish name). And a young, one blind-eyed Jack Elam is, as he usually was in Westerns, vicious and deliciously smarmy.