This is an unpleasant movie. But it's meant to be, so it's not like I'm just disliking a likeable movie here. This movie is one of those "psychological westerns," which sometimes I love (like
Shane [1953] and
3:10 to Yuma [1957]) and sometimes loathe (like
The Ox-Bow Incident [1943]). That makes it a type of "
revisionist western," which basically just means the main characters aren't necessarily Good Guys and the antagonists aren't necessarily Bad Guys, and that good might not completely triumph over evil. In some ways, it has more in common with Alan's
noir pictures than anything else.
The most interesting thing about One Foot in Hell for me, as an Alan Ladd enamoree, is that it involves the exact reverse of his usual character arcs. In so many of his films, Ladd played a "wrong guy" who gradually changed until he was a "right guy." He played many, many characters like that, including his burst into stardom in This Gun for Hire (1942).
It's Alan Ladd's type. He's brilliant at it. I've never seen anyone else so good at convincing me he's hard-hearted and bitter and mean, and then that he's learning to listen to his conscience because he's met up with some nice or decent people, and that he finally becomes a good man as a result. I don't get tired of watching Ladd in that arc, which is good since I've seen him play variations on that arc in sixteen different films. (Yes, I counted.)
Well, One Foot in Hell is the reverse. It begins when Mitch Barrett (Alan Ladd) arrives in a small western town with his wife, who's in the throes of a difficult childbirth. Everyone in town is asleep. The hotel clerk is grumpy about being awakened and asked to do his job of checking the couple in and giving them a key to a hotel room. The doctor (Larry Gates) is not quite so grumpy about being awakened to attend a woman in labor, at least. But the store clerk who doubles as a sort of pharmacist is very upset about having to get up in the middle of the night to fill a prescription with medicine the doctor says will save Mitch's wife and unborn baby. Mitch left his wallet at the hotel, and the clerk refuses to let Mitch have the medicine on credit. Mitch is desperate to get the medicine to his wife, whom he loves dearly, so he pulls a gun on the clerk and takes the medicine at gunpoint, promising to pay him in the morning.
The clerk wakes up the sheriff (Karl Swenson), yammering about Mitch robbing the store at gunpoint. The sheriff nabs Mitch on his way to take the medicine to his wife and the doctor. While Mitch explains to the sheriff why this is urgent, precious minutes tick away. When he finally gets to the hotel with the medicine, escorted by the clerk and the sheriff, his wife and baby have both died. The townsfolk file out, leaving Mitch alone with his dead wife.
I've rarely been so affected by Ladd getting emotional. He's frozen and numb for a few moments, trying to grasp what has happened. Then he lashes out violently, smashing the bottle of medicine and choking out a few words in anguish before dropping to his knees by her side and sobbing. I'm not sure I've ever seen Ladd cry onscreen in anything else, come to think of it. I can't recall any instances, anyway. I've certainly never seen him play a character who sobs like this, which makes this scene even more moving for me.
Like I said, the reverse of his usual arc: we have Alan Ladd's character starting out as a good and nice guy, but he runs into some uncaring and mean people, and he becomes a bad man as a result. The rest of the movie is about him pretending to forgive the townsfolk, taking a job there as deputy, and putting together a team of baddies to steal the town's money and murder the men he holds responsible for his wife and baby's deaths.
That's pretty much the whole movie, just Alan Ladd sliding farther and farther into darkness and villainy. Which he does very effectively, I might add. It's one of his best later performances, probably because it's a very different role from his usual, and so meaty. I do not like this movie, but I very much appreciate his performance. He believably slides from smiling, decent, and kind to flint-eyed, conniving, and vicious.
Is this movie family friendly? Basically, I guess -- there's no cussing or outright smut, and the violence is old-movie-style and not gory. The woman experiencing anguish in childbirth and then dying may disturb some viewers, especially younger ones. A later character is obviously a prostitute, but her profession isn't mentioned, only implied. A man marries her and then refuses to share her bed, and she kisses another man later. Like I said, not a pleasant movie, but also not a yucky one.
You can buy One Foot in Hell on DVD and stream it on Amazon, and probably find it streaming elsewhere too..
This review has been my contribution to the
Aaron Spellingverse Blogathon hosted by Gill at Realweegiemidget Reviews. Aaron Spelling co-wrote this screenplay with Sydney Boehm.
