Review: Anthony Mann’s ‘Bend of the River,’ Starring James Stewart, on Kino Blu-ray

Anthony Mann’s second collaboration with James Stewart, 1952’s Bend of the River, begins as a relatively straightforward western through the lens of manifest destiny, in which a group of settlers head to the Pacific Northwest to settle a patch of the Oregon territory. Guiding this group is Glyn McLyntock (Stewart), a reformed outlaw trying to go straight, whose heroic qualities are swiftly established in ways both unimpeachable (saving a man from a lynching) and problematic (helping to gun down a group of Shoshone warriors who attack the convoy for invading their land). The latter throws the winsome frontier spirit of the film’s first few minutes into more ambiguous terrain, reminding the viewer of the underlying violence of even the most ostensibly peaceful expansion.

Once the settlers get fixed in their new hamlet, though, the film pivots to show the white homesteaders falling prey to some of the same greedy schemes they themselves represent. Forced to return to nearby Portland to pick up basic necessities, Glyn and the settlers discover that the town is in the grip of a gold rush that’s driven up prices in the area and turned unscrupulous vendors into ruthless extortionists. Abruptly, a story about frontier tension between indigenous tribes and white homesteaders becomes one about an internecine battle among the expansionists over their varying levels of rapacious greed.

Inevitably, violence erupts, and Glyn heads up a defensive posse among the settlers to fight back against raids by hired guns. Stewart doesn’t fully lean into the dark side he would show in his later Mann films, but he reveals glimpses of a rage that Glyn clearly has to work hard to suppress. Whenever Glyn is ambushed by local bandits, he crouches like a cornered animal, looking not afraid but almost eager to demonstrate the mistake his pursuers have just made.

In the film’s most arresting scene, Glyn confronts Emerson Cole (Arthur Kennedy), the man he saved from a lynching and who turns on the settlers for money. At last driven around the bend, Glyn snaps and gets the best of his attackers until he’s at last framed triumphant but terrifying in a low-angle close-up that emphasizes the wild look in his eyes and the blood smearing from his mouth. Taunting Emerson, he hisses, “Every time you bed down for the night, you’ll look back to the darkness and wonder if I’m there” as if he were the boogeyman. Bend of the River ends happily, at least on its surface, but it’s this view of a man slipping into his most bestial self with a hint of relief at dropping the act of civility that is the film’s most lasting image.

Image/Sound

Sourced from a new 4K restoration, Kino Lorber’s transfer of Bend the River markedly improves upon the one on the label’s 2019 Blu-ray, which came from an older master. The cool blues of open skies are more saturated than they were on the previous release, and the earthen colors of the characters’ clothing and the landscape’s sparsely vegetated terrain look richer and fuller. Nighttime shots lack any instances of crushing that occasionally cropped up on the old disc, and close-ups reveal new depths to the lines in the actors’ tanned faces. The lossless mono soundtrack lacks any discernible issues, betraying no hisses or pops as it stably renders dialogue, music, and the intermittent burst of gunfire.

Extras

Kino’s disc comes with two commentary tracks, one by critic Toby Roan that appeared on the 2019 Blu-ray and a new one by critics Julie Kirgo and C. Courtney Joyner. Both tracks cover similar ground, with the critics placing the film in the context of Anthony Mann and James Stewart’s careers, with emphasis on the director’s visual trademarks, such as his expressionistic lighting and the use of the harsh Oregon landscapes to comment on human morality.

Overall

Kino Lober gives Bend of the River, Anthony Mann’s grim depiction of frontier greed, a stellar reissue boasting a gorgeous new transfer and two sturdy commentary tracks.