Vengeance knows no age

Anthony Quinn, left, Dana Andrews, Henry Fonda and Frank Conroy
contributed wonderful performances to The Ox-Bow Incident.

The Ox-Bow Incident

(1943, Twentieth Century-Fox)

Starring Henry Fonda, Dana Andrews,

Anthony Quinn, Harry Morgan, Harry Davenport

Screenplay by Lamar Trotti

Directed by William Wellman

“A man just naturally can’t take the law into his own hands

and hang people without hurtin’ everybody
in the world.” — Gil Martin

Classic films often are “classic” because they continue to be relevant long after their release. That’s certainly the case with The Ox-Bow Incident, a 70-year-old picture that resonates with today’s headlines. In an age when terrorist attacks prompt a fearful populace to demand the instant identification of the perpetrators, regardless of the innocent lives that are ruined before the true killers are captured, this study of how prejudice and the often irresistible thirst for vengeance takes a heavy toll on everyone deserves attention.

The film is classified as a western because of its setting, but few of the usual conventions found in westerns are present. And the wide-open spaces so common of films in the genre are mostly exchanged for obvious studio and backlot sets, whose close quarters add to the claustrophobic feel of the tragic story.

It all starts in a small Nevada town, where a report of a popular rancher’s murder sparks the formation of a posse to track down the alleged killers and lynch them, despite the urging of a judge and a store owner to bring the offenders in to face trial. Eventually, the posse stumbles upon three sleeping men with a herd of cattle, and circumstantial evidence points to them being the killers. Donald Martin (Dana Andrews), the boss of the outfit, unsuccessfully pleads their innocence.

The shop owner and Gil Carter (Fonda) are moved by Martin and try to persuade the others to do the right thing. But the majority votes to hang the men, and the deed is carried out in a scene in which the dreadful act isn’t pictured, but the impact certainly isn’t lessened. Of course, the men are innocent, as it’s soon revealed the rancher is still alive and those responsible have been arrested.

The Ox-Bow Incident features a well-written, dark and compelling story of the danger of mob rule, as well as some striking performances, especially by Andrews. Fonda’s character is a witness as some individuals in the mob have other motives for committing the lynching while most were easily led down this slippery slope. Eventually, Gil stops being a witness and tries, in vain, to halt the inevitable.

Heavy stuff, I know, but great films often challenge audience members and enlighten those who take up the challenge.

Fatal Attraction

Jeff Bailey (Robert Mitchum) will regret the day he
met the ravishing Kathie Moffat (Jane Greer)
in Out of the Past, the quintessential film noir.

Out of the Past (1947, RKO Radio)

Starring Robert Mitchum, Jane Greer, Kirk Douglas
Screenplay by Geoffrey Homes (Daniel Mainwaring)

Directed by Jacques Tourneur

“But I didn’t take anything. I didn’t, Jeff.

Don’t you believe me?”— Kathie Moffat

“Baby, I don’t care.” — Jeff Bailey

Many film noir protagonists wind up taking the big sleep at the end of the movie. In Out of the Past, the male lead becomes a dead man walking the instant he glimpses the woman who will be his downfall.

Jeff Bailey (Robert Mitchum) is a mystery man to the good folks in Bridgeport, even after several years of running a gas station there. However, a face from, er, out of the past appears at Jeff’s business to draft him into the service of Whit (Kirk Douglas), a mob boss who Jeff double-crossed several years earlier. Jeff reveals the details of the sordid affair to his girlfriend as they head toward his rendezvous with Whit.

In a flashback that features Jeff’s sardonic voice-over, we watch as Whit hires him to find Kathie Moffat (Jane Greer), Whit’s lover, who shot him and ran off with $40,000, and to bring her back. Jeff tracks her to Mexico, where he watches the slinky Kathie stroll out of the sunlight into the darkness of a cantina. Jeff is totally captivated by this vision (as was I), and from that moment he knows he won’t be taking her back to Whit. What he doesn’t know is he also signed his own death warrant.

This meeting sparks an exhilarating ride that runs through a world dominated by greed, lust and a vain struggle to get out of the adventure alive. Greer brings to life the most fatal of femmes fatale, who doesn’t hesitate to switch sides or gun men down when she feels threatened. Mitchum fleshes out Jeff grandly as a smart guy who knows the angles, but that knowledge couldn’t keep him from being ensnared by this treacherous beauty.

With its dark shadows, where danger and deceit lurk, Out of the Past is a visually stunning film and is my pick as the best of master film noir cinematographer Nicholas Musuraca’s repertoire. As you’ll find in the best films noir, great dialogue, like the quotes above, snaps throughout. On imdb.com, fans have filled four pages commenting about the best lines.

Stay away from Against All Odds, the awful 1980s remake. You need to know only two things:

1) It was made in the '80s
2) Jeff Bridges plays the Mitchum role

Out of the Past is one of my favorite movies from any genre, and I find it exciting and entertaining to explore the dreamworld that is film noir.

Mellon Treasure Plundered

This was how the majestic banking floor of Mellon
Bank's landmark building looked before being gutted
to house a short-lived Lord & Taylor store.

This blog has featured success stories of historic buildings and sites that, through the foresight and passion of their owners, have made a successful transition into the 21st century.

These places, large and small, from the Schenley Hotel to Highland Towers to the McCook Mansion, remain functional and add a great deal to the landscape of Pittsburgh.

This is a story about the tragic loss of an architectural gem that was lost for no good reason.

The powerful Mellon family commissioned the architectural firm of Trowbridge and Livingston, which also designed the Gulf Building on Grant Street for the Mellons, to create a palace of money for them downtown.

Opened in 1924 on Smithfield Street, the Classical structure displayed a solid, conservative face to the city while the interior featured a forest of tall, Ionic columns that added dignity to the open banking floor.

Called “the Cathedral of Earning” by some witty folks, the interior was a remnant from another age.

But it wasn’t destined to last forever.

In 1999, then Mayor Tom Murphy, in an attempt to revive downtown Pittsburgh, lured Lord & Taylor to open a department store in the building.

The city pumped nearly $12 million into the effort that ripped the heart out of the banking floor by pulling down the columns.

However, Lord & Taylor couldn’t compete and pulled out in November 2004.

It’s been empty ever since.

In his book “Buildings of Pittsburgh,” Pitt professor Franklin Toker laments the fate of this elegant space:

“Serene and majestic on the outside, Mellon Bank has covered the block of Smithfield between Fifth Avenue and Mellon Square since 1924, but it has been destroyed inside. The long and airy banking hall, one of Pittsburgh's prime architectural and social spaces, vanished in 1999 when its short-sighted owners and an overeager city hall let Lord and Taylor rebuild it as a faux-Manhattan emporium.

“Fifteen tons of Italian marble in each of the Ionic columns was smashed and hauled away, leaving just their steel cores. Gone was the vast basilica-like space of the hall, 65 feet tall and 200 feet long; gone were the aisles coffered and painted deep blue with speckles of gold leaf; gone was any hint that the world's earliest venture capitalists once operated out of Pittsburgh.

“Befitting its place at the heart of Mellon operations, the hall commemorated [Andrew W.] and [Richard Beatty] Mellon with portraits and inscriptions on the walls of the vault.

"After Lord and Taylor's quick demise a few years later, the now banal interior awaits some new use.”

While it’s true that the building had been empty for some time before the tragic Lord & Taylor enterprise, that fact didn’t justify what was done to a unique building that New York would have been proud to claim.

However, the grand building will be re-entering the banking business after being purchased by PNC Bank in June, 2012, for $3.85 million. PNC expects to move 800 employees there in late 2013 or 2014 when renovations are complete.

In a June 11, 2012, story published in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, a PNC spokesperson said, “Our plan is to restore the exterior architectural integrity of the building, and we are considering restoring it to its original condition.”

It’s gratifying that someone wants to correct the great wrongs committed against this fine building.

The stately former Mellon Bank building is a shell
of its former self, but PNC Bank is riding to the rescue.

Mellon postscript

While doing research for this blog entry, I found a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette review of the biography of Thomas Mellon – founder of the family fortune and dynasty – written by his great-great grandson, James.

Thomas Mellon

A dour man whose only interest was business and the gaining of even larger piles of money, Thomas Mellon objected to city taxpayers supplying $40,000 for the creation of the Carnegie Library and the construction of H.H. Richardson’s internationally renowned masterpiece, the Allegheny County Courthouse. A plain brick one would do for him.

But what struck me about this piece was how little things have changed in 150 years.

With the Civil War raging and the Union, as well as his business interests, threatened, James Mellon, 18, wanted his father’s permission to put off learning the coal and iron business to enlist in the Army.

In withholding his permission, the elder Mellon held a belief that he saw as trumping any idea of patriotism or duty: His son should be making money.

This is what he told James:

"I had hoped my boy was going to make a smart, intelligent business man and was not such a goose as to be seduced from his duty by the declamations of buncombed [or bullshit] speeches."

So, just like today, the poor of the 1860s fought the fight for the rich.