Pursued

As a boy Jeb hid one night beneath his house while guns went off above; by morning nobody in his family was left. All he keeps of that night are pieces; a boot, a light, a sound. The neighbour Medora Callum takes him in and raises him with her own children. Jeb grows up, loves his foster sister Thorley, and his foster brother Adam hates him. He comes back from the war. Then somebody tries to kill him, then somebody else. Jeb does not know who is after him and does not remember what he saw that night. Raoul Walsh directs. Niven Busch wrote the screenplay. Robert Mitchum, Teresa Wright, Judith Anderson and Dean Jagger are in the cast. James Wong Howe was the cinematographer. It is an American production. Although it is a western the film is shot in the language of noir; shadow, flashback and nightmare are inside the story. The narrative proceeds as a flashback; the man tells his story while waiting to be killed. The matter it treats is not being able to remember; the threat is invisible because its reason is unknown. The character played by Judith Anderson is the real centre and she carries the secret. The photography gives the night and the interiors in hard contrast. The film turns fate and family history into a trap. The narrative makes the romance part of that trap too. The ending resolves the violence with a single conversation. Its limit is pace; the narrative is slow, the flashbacks dense, and the expectations of the genre are not met. Who it is for: viewers who like the place where the classic western meets noir. Who it is not for: it is dated, heavy, and the ending dark.