Movie Review: Vengeance Valley (1951) directed by Richard Thorpe
Owen Daybright (Burt Lancaster) is the foster son of rancher Arch Strobie (Ray Collins), and foreman of the ranch. Along with his foster brother Lee Strobie (Robert Walker), he’s been out riding the winter range for several months. They stop in to the saloon to get their first whiskey in ages, and the local news. Turns out that Lily Fasken (Sally Forrest), the pretty girl who worked over at the town restaurant, has just given birth, and no one knows who the father is.
The next scene has Owen showing up at the house where Lily is lying in with a bundle of food and $500 in gold. Tending Lily is Lee’s wife Jen Strobie (Joanne Dru). Lily’s brother Dick Fasken (Hugh O’Brian), is also there, and assumes that Owen is either the father or knows who is. Owen refuses to dignify Dick’s accusations and questions with a response.
Lee, of course, is the father. His secret fling with Lily ended just before he met and married Jen, and he wants to keep it a secret for obvious reasons. Lee, as it turns out, is a man of weak character, and Owen has been cleaning up his messes and covering for him for years. Lee has come to resent that Owen is the “good” brother and their father Arch has come to rely on the adoptee. Owen’s even been shielding Arch from some of Lee’s transgressions, including this one.
Jen figures out who the father of Lily’s baby is, and when Lee won’t come clean, grows cold towards him. Meanwhile, Dick has summoned his even more unpleasant brother Hub Fasken (John Ireland) and against Lily’s wishes, are determined to force the truth from Owen’s lips or kill him trying.
Lee decides that he’s burned enough bridges that he should finish the job, and comes up with a plan to allow the Fasken brothers to murder Owen while Lee himself gets away with enough money to be a rich man in another state somewhere.
This movie was adapted from a story by solid Western writer Luke Short, and due to some sloppy paperwork is one of the few MGM films of its era to fall into the public domain. Thus it shows up in cheap boxed sets a lot (I have multiple copies) at the cost of inferior prints.
This is a good Western, with above average acting and an intriguing plot. The action scenes are decent but not top-rate.
However, this is also an old-fashioned Western, with clear lines between good people and bad people–with the one exception of things around Lily’s out of wedlock pregnancy. It’s made clear that it’s socially disapproved of; the town doctor won’t attend the birth unless he’s specifically asked to by the father, and Lily’s lost her job. But Jen, Owen, and the widow Burke (Grayce Mills) are kind to her, and narrator Hewie (Carleton Carpenter) is respectfully in love with the single mother. Lily is willing to take responsibility for her own mistakes and move forward with her life, and repeatedly tells her brothers she disapproves of their quest for vengeance on the man that “dishonored” her.
Content note: Violence (not gory), a little cruelty to animals (“A good whipping never hurt a filly” is Lee’s excuse and double entendre), Lee drinks to excess.
Well worth a watch for Western fans.
