MANN, Anthony

(1906–1967)

   Born Emil Bundesmann in San Diego, California, Mann began his career on the New York stage both as actor and director. In 1938 he moved to Hollywood and worked behind the scenes as casting director, talent scout, and assistant director before directing his first films in 1942: Dr. Broadway and Moonlight in Havana. His first Western was Devil’s Doorway(1950), followed be a string of successes throughout the 1950s, most starring Jimmy Stewart: Winchester ’73 (1950), The Furies (1950), Bend of the River (1952), The Naked Spur (1953), The Far Country (1954), The Man from Laramie (1955), The Last Frontier (1955), The Tin Star (1957), and Man of the West (1958).

   Winchester ’73 was Mann’s first major success and one that secured his reputation. The film began Mann’s reliance on Jimmy Stewart, established Mann’s directing style, and began developing themes that would run throughout his Westerns. Much of Mann’s work often moves through the human emotions, usually reaching a level of near insanity before the plot turns to normalcy. Often his plots treat revenge of one type or another. These revenge Westerns follow the progression of revenge from mild urgings to maniacal obsession. Thus, the typical Mann hero, as in Winchester ’73 and The Man from Laramie, sets out on a revenge quest, initially for revenge on others, but at some point the hero turns inward, sees the void inside, and seeks revenge upon himself instead. Mann’s Westerns, while not short on plot, nevertheless are usually psychological films often associated with film noir. In fact, the term noir Western was evidently developed primarily with Anthony Mann in mind. Anthony Mann’s Westerns usually reach for the epic, portraying the cowboy hero’s struggle against himself but also his struggle against overpowering forces—first against the forces of community, but also, as in The Naked Spur (1953), against the forces of nature, the forces of the savage, barren Western landscape. In contrast, Bend of the River (1952) is set in the Northwest and here the forests, steep mountain slopes, and raging rivers are the natural hazards against which characters confront each other. McLyntock’s (Stewart) final struggle occurs in the mountain river that kills and sweeps away its dead without remorse. For Mann, the landscape “become[s] part of the action” (Calder 1975, 14). Similarly, in Winchester ’73, the final fight occurs on the barren rock that symbolizes the intense hatred of two brothers reduced to their most fundamental natures in brutal struggle.

   Fittingly, Mann ended his career searching for the genuine epic, first with Cimarron (1960), the story of empire building in Oklahoma, and then outside the Western genre with El Cid (1961) and The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964).