There's a scene in here where Robert Ryan takes a long hard look at himself in a mirror that on the surface should be cliched and overdone but somehow works, because it's Robert Ryan and we've already seen that he's a piece of work and because Robert Ryan's face does self loathing like nobody else in the history of cinema.

There's another where he sits on the side of a bed looking at the floor holding himself upright with both arms as if it takes every ounce of himself to even get up and face the world. Robert Ryan at 50, not yet ready for old man guest appearance roles, not yet ready to give up being a lead actor,…

The Western-in-blizzard subgenre is always a bleak, brutal one, it seems. This film has three standout sequences: a fist fight in the snow, the coerced dance sequence, and the final path into winter.

The first is impressive in its violence, more blunt and nasty than these things tend to be, protracted and ugly, the sort of fight that these days would be bloodier but still comes off as painful for all involved. It's an emotional battle, and one that ends with coldness and something that passed for justice once upon a time. It's the sort of moment that leaves you feeling dirty for rooting for anyone at all. And yet, it's not the greyest moment of the film.

The coerced…

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It’s a specific film until it becomes another one entirely with a sudden shift through which De Toth never fumbles the tension, slyly rearranging the pieces to enforce a drastically different power dynamic: A rugged rancher at provincial war with local homesteaders and farmers—plus engaged in a clandestine affair with his most outspoken adversary’s wife—abruptly flips from the town’s biggest incendiary to its only hope, a structural remodeling that occurs at, quite literally, the (near) drop of a bottle. Years-old conflicts are thrust to the backburner as territorial concerns seem trivial next to basic survival. Once Captain Bruhn’s fleet settles in, everything swells like a warm powder keg; the only thing precluding detonation is the dwindling obedience of his…

André De Toth was quite the eccentric fellow and his films equally as interesting. Day of the Outlaw is a bleak and brutal anti-Western that exceeds even the Boetticher-Scott collaborations of the same period in its desolate, inauspicious depiction of frontier life and denigration of the archetypal hero protagonist that had populated the genre for so long.

If there's one word to best describe this film it's sparse, the frigid snowy landscapes of Wyoming are shot in stark black and white, a choice that De Toth purposefully made to accentuate the severity of the frigid conditions, whilst the interiors are equally as barren, the cupboards of the general store completely bare and likewise the saloon has nothing but a few…

"You won't find much mercy anywhere in Wyoming."

Cowboys and settlers learn to put their differences aside when they're invaded by a more menacing force: a brutal gang of ex-military thugs. Never has black and white felt more appropriate to the western than here: no more hot red rocks or dry yellow sand or verdant green trees, just the cold, unfeeling white of the snow and the ominous black of everything else.

Day of the Outlaw combines that magical blend of deep focus, long takes, and clear staging which makes for an experience that's at the same time engrossing, expressive, and artistic, completely mitigating any evidence of the film's low budget. It's full of brilliant little character details, like the…

Very much a typical Western except when it isn't, Andre de Toth's film was, by all accounts a difficult shoot, and there seems to be some question as to whether or not the involved parties were happy with their own translation of the novel to the screen, but whatever their own opinions, the finished film is quite striking, beginning with a small town (de Toth had everything built in advance for authenticity) with a population of about 20---no doctor in town, just a vet (and a calf) where Robert Ryan is about to kill the no-good cuckold wife of the woman he loves in return for her breaking off their affair (Tina Louise--I really should watch more films with Tina…

Ich sags ganz ehrlich, ich hatte von dem Film noch nie gehoert. Erst als er kuerzlich in England auf Blu Ray veroeffentlicht wurde erweckte er meine Aufmerksamkeit. Und da mir die Western von Andre de Toth eh immer ganz gut gefallen (Besonders "Riding Shotgun" mit Randolph Scott), und es so viele Lobeshymnen auf den Film gibt, schaute ich ihn mir nun erwartungsvoll an.

Und ich wurde nicht enttaeuscht. Das ist ein wahrhaft faszinierender Film. Wie Rezensent Ritschi schon sagt, ein "Noir Western", ein Film, der nicht viele Zutaten des ueblichen 50er Jahre Westerns hat. Es gibt keinen echten Helden, es gibt keine Schiessereien, und nichtmal einen echten Boesewicht. Ein 20 Seelen Dorf im verschneiten Wyoming wird von ein paar Armee-Deserteuren,…

For a limited budget film, talented and under rated director André De Toth was able to create a true masterpiece with this bleak and at times all too realistic western.

De Toth opens the picture out to the real world often to alleviate the limited realism of studio sets. Shot with Oregon's Mount Bachelor as a backdrop, he created a small town and populated it with some interesting characters. Robert Ryan and Burl Ives give stunning performances and force the co-stars to reach higher, though often unable. Ryan in particular is a true force, his subdued performance dominates the screen.

The third act includes a trek through a snowbound mountain pass and it is one of the most amazing bits…