The Law and Jake Wade *** (1958, Robert Taylor, Richard Widmark, Patricia Owens, Robert Middleton, Henry Silva) – Classic Movie Review 6255

The MGM studio employ their fading but still busy star Robert Taylor to strong effect in director John Sturges’s very good 1958 traditional Western The Law and Jake Wade. That is mainly a credit to the capable work of stalwart director Sturges and William Bowers’s fine screenplay, based on a novel by Marvin H Albert.

Taylor, as marshal and former outlaw Jake Wade, and Richard Widmark, as his former fellow gang member and still outlaw Clint Hollister, are ideally stacked up against each other as the protagonist and antagonist opponents, who retain a respect, even a liking for each other. Widmark of course is always best as the bad guy, and once again shows why here.

Plenty of tension, brooding atmosphere and incident (including buried gang loot and a Native American attack), plus the odd moral dilemma thrown in as the hero saves the heavy, but what will he do in a final confrontation in a ghost town?

Also in the cast are Patricia Owens, Robert Middleton, Henry Silva, Eddie Firestone, Burt Douglas and DeForest Kelley, with Fred Coby, Gene Coogan, Richard H. Cutting, Roy Engel, Al Ferguson, Rory Mallinson, Reginald Simpson, Dean Smith and Henry Wills all appearing uncredited.

The Law and Jake Wade is shot in widescreen and Metrocolor amid the grandeur of the High Sierras (Alabama Hills, Lone Pine, California) by Robert Surtees, and produced by William B Hawks, with art direction by Daniel B Cathcart and William A Horning. The score is comprised of stock music, with Frank E Anderson as the music supervisor.

© Derek Winnert 2017 Classic Movie Review 6255

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Robert Taylor, fading star of The Law and Jake Wade (1958).