Law and Order (1932)

Law and Order (later retitled Guns A'Blazin') is a 1932 Universal western based on W.R. Burnett’s novel Saint Johnson. It stars Walter Huston. One of the writers was John Huston. So that’s an impressive array of talent.

It’s around 1889. Frame Johnson (popularly known as Saint Johnson and played by Walter Huston), his brother Luther (Russell Hopton) and their buddies Brandt (Harry Carey) and Deadwood (Raymond Hatton) have a choice to make. They can take the road to the peaceful but dull town of Alkali or the other road that leads to Tombstone. Tombstone is a much more exciting town but it’s wild and dangerous. They leave the decision to the fall of the cards. They take the road to Tombstone. It’s a fateful decision. Later in the movie there will be another fateful decision decided by a bet.

Frame Johnson is a legendary lawman but he’s determined to hang up his shooting irons. Frame has killed thirty-five men but paradoxically he hates guns and he hates violence. He believes in law and order, but he dreams of a future in which law and order do not depend on the gun.

The last thing Frame wants is to wear a badge again. Tombstone is a lawless town run by the corrupt and vicious Northrup brothers and their cronies, assisted by the equally corrupt sheriff, Fin Elder. Judge Williams wants to appoint Frame a Deputy U.S. Marshal, to clean up the town. Frame wants no part of it. And then fate steps in, in the form of a bet. Frame is soon wearing a deputy marshal’s badge.

Frame and the town council decide to ban guns in Tombstone. Rather daringly, and perhaps rashly, Frame decides that he and his deputies (Luther, Brandt and Deadwood) will give up their guns as well. Law and order will be enforced in Tombstone without guns.

It doesn’t quite work out. There’s another gun killing and Frame has to pick up his shooting irons again. Events are leading inexorably to a showdown with the Northrups and it’s going to be an epic gunfight.

Those who think that westerns didn’t start to become grown-up until John Ford made Stagecoach in 1939 will be very surprised by this movie. Westerns don’t come much more grown-up than Law and Order. Those who think that it was Anthony Mann who first took the western into darker territory will also be in for a surprise. Westerns don’t come much darker than Law and Order.

The tone of the movie is just slightly reminiscent of another Walter Huston movie made in the same year, The Beast of the City. The resemblance is not accidental - The Beast of the City is also based on a W.R. Burnett novel. In that movie Huston is a cop battling gangsters but the thematic similarities are striking.

Walter Huston is superb. It’s a smouldering performance. Frame Johnson is a good man but a dangerous one. When that smouldering fire leaps into flames it would be wise to stand clear.

1932 was an extraordinary year for Huston. He also co-starred with Joan Crawford in Rain, giving a memorable performance as a preacher engaged in a battle of wills with a prostitute.

Among the supporting cast is Andy Devine, looking young and thin! He plays a man accused of murder who is about to be lynched. Frame Johnson intends to put a stop to lynching.

The supporting cast overall is very strong.

Director Edward L. Cahn had an interesting career, becoming best known for schlocky science fiction and juvenile delinquent movies in the 50s. Law and Order suggests that maybe he should have had a more prestigious career. He does a fine job and handles the action scenes well.

This is a very bleak and somewhat gruelling movie. Things are tense from the start and the tension builds steadily.

It has a complicated hero. Frame Johnson is a man with very strong notions but sometimes they’re wrong. Sometimes he’s too idealistic and sometimes he’s too cynical. He believes in law and order but he doesn’t believe that people in general want law and order. He yearns for a better world, a world without constant violence and corruption, a world of peace. But he has doubts as to whether such a world is possible.

Law and Order is an intelligent, provocative, very dark western. Highly recommended.

I picked up this movie in a French DVD release from Sidonis. It’s a pretty good transfer and it includes an unexpected bonus - the 1953 remake of Law and Order starring Ronald Reagan. And both movies are presented in English. I've also reviewed that version - Law and Order (1953).