John Chard
Edward Dmytryk Crafts The Western King Lear.
With both it being based on Shakespeare's King Lear and being a Western remake of Joseph L. Mankiewicz's tasty film noir, House of Strangers, Broken Lance had fine sources from which to work from. Throw in to the mixer that it stars Spencer Tracy, Richard Widmark, Katy Jurado, Robert Wagner and Earl Holliman, and that Joseph MacDonald was director Edward Dmytryk's cinematographer of choice, well it's all set up to be a highly accomplished piece.
And it is!
Dmytryk's film tells the story of how the Devereaux family came to implode. Father Matt {Tracy}, is a tough no nonsense pioneer who after finding a copper smelter has polluted his water, illegally raids the copper mine with destructive...