The Frame

Okay, I may need to make a no-VHS rule, because watching things on fuzzy VHS seriously tampers with my ability to judge the film apart from its picture quality. This is a cult-film favorite from director Nicholas Ray (best known for Rebel Without a Cause, but best-loved by me for In a Lonely Place), and it’s a bit of an odd one. Joan Crawford plays the tough owner of a Western saloon who Mercedes McCambridge is trying to run out of town. McCambridge’s character seemed to lack motivation to me, and I’m not sure what all Ray was trying to do or if he succeeded, but there are some interesting things going on, especially in the subversion/ignoring of Western genre rules. He was also doing some interesting thing with color, but like I said, the VHS copy was pretty bad, so a lot of the visual nuances were lost. I’ll try to watch it on DVD sometime (you know, after it’s released on DVD, ’cause it looks like it isn’t yet) to look more closely at that.
Above Average