Devil’s Doorway 05/07/24

Guy Trosper, Anthony Mann and John Alton’s western is shocking stuff for 1950 — Hollywood did address the historical  raw deal handed Native Americans, way before the activist ’70s. Robert Taylor is a Shoshone rancher in Wyoming, who comes back from the Civil War with medals and finds that opportunists are passing laws that dispossess him of his citizenship and property rights. Rather than give up, he fights back and is labeled a terrorist threat to decency. 30 years before Heaven’s Gate, the cavalry comes to the rescue — for the villains. It’s rough stuff, the kind of ‘subversive’ movie that got other directors blacklisted. The remastered presentation is a beauty.