As a precursor to our film project, 12 Western Feature-Length Films in 12 Months, which Running Wild Films and 5J Media will start producing in 2016, director Travis Mills shares his thoughts on films from the genre as he studies Westerns in preparation for our own. Follow the project here on Facebook
This series of short blogs is titled “Western Impressions”.
Quantez (1957)
God, this movie started strong. Four men and a woman all on the run from a robbery, hiding in an abandoned town. It was eerie, full of just the right kind of underlying tension and suspense between the characters. Then somewhere along the way, it loses its edge. I’m not quite sure why… once we are given reason for the town’s emptiness (Native Americans), the tension certainly deflates. Still it is a good sort-of “chamber piece” of a Western that reminds me somewhat of a feature film I directed called The Men Who Robbed the Bank. Fred MacMurray is particularly good in the kind of role I could see William Holden playing.
Lasting impression: the feeling of when the group of outlaws first comes into the abandoned town… no word fits it better than “eerie”
