The Tin Star

A western set in a town in the American west. Morg Hickman rides into town with a body. He is a bounty hunter. He goes to the sheriff's office. He wants the money. The sheriff is young. Ben Owens has held the post a few months and nobody takes him seriously. Council approval is needed for the payment. Morg has to wait. He stays in town. From there the film is a story of teaching. Ben starts asking him questions. Morg was a sheriff once. He gave it up and does not say why. He teaches him things. How to stand, where to look, when to draw and when not to. The lessons are mostly not about the gun. The town is uneasy. A man called Bart Bogardus keeps provoking and gathering a crowd. There is a robbery. Two brothers shoot a doctor and run for the hills. The crowd wants a lynching. Ben wants the law. Morg takes no side but stays. What the narrative is interested in is not law but transmission: its idea is that a job can only continue if someone teaches it, and that the man teaching ran from the same job. Morg has another line. A woman and her son live outside town. Nona was married to a native man and the town will not have her. Morg goes back and forth there. That line is the narrative's second subject: who counts as belonging to the town. The last section takes place in a street. Ben stands alone against the crowd. The narrative does not resolve it with a gun. Anthony Mann made this in the middle of his western period and its tone is quieter than the others. The story was nominated for an Oscar. Henry Fonda, Anthony Perkins, Betsy Palmer, Michel Ray and Neville Brand are in the cast. Who it is for: anyone who likes 1950s westerns and master-and-apprentice narratives. Who it is not for: anyone looking for action; the narrative rests on talk and there is very little gunplay.