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Blood on the Moon
1948 |
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Wise described BLOOD ON THE MOON as his "first big feature." It was also his first Western. (He would go on to make two more in the '50s.)
Fourteen years later, Wise would direct Mitchum again in a very different kind of film—the urban romantic comedy TWO FOR THE SEESAW. |
After he is nearly trampled by
a herd of runaway steers
while camping on Indian reservation range land, Jim Garry is
questioned by the
herd's owner, John Lufton. The wary Lufton reveals to
Jim that, after years
of supplying the local reservation with beef, he is being forced
out by Jake
Pindalest, the new Indian agent. Lufton is also fighting
rancher Tate
Riling, who has organized the area homesteaders to prevent him
from moving
his cattle back to the basin grazing land that was once his.
Although
suspicious that Jim may be one of Tate's hired guns, Lufton
asks him to
deliver a note to his family, who have a house in the basin.
As Jim
approaches the spread, he is shot at by a woman, who turns out
to be Lufton's
 daughter Amy. After Jim hands the note to Lufton's eldest daughter
Carol, he
meets with Tate, an old friend who had summoned him in a letter.
Tate
reveals to Jim that his true plan is to force Lufton, who must
soon vacate
the reservation, to sell his cattle to him at a cutrate price
and then sell
the herd to Pindalest, with whom he is in league, at an inflated
rate.
Because he is broke, Jim agrees to become one of Tate's henchmen,
but
expresses no enthusiasm for the scheme. The next day, Carol
and Amy ride to
meet their father at the basin crossing point indicated in his
note. When
they arrive, however, they are greeted by Tate, Jim and the
gang. Amy
reveals that her father deliberately wrote the wrong location
on the note and
angrily accuses Jim of betraying its contents. Unknown
to Amy, Carol, who is
in love with Tate, relayed the information to him and later
agrees to tell
him where her father actually crossed. Soon after, as
Amy informs Lufton
about Jim, Tate and his men storm into their cattle camp and
start a
stampede. During the ensuing chaos, one of Lufton's cowboys
is trampled to
death and homesteader Fred Barden is shot. A saddened
Jim informs Fred's
father Kris, a former avid supporter of Tate's efforts, about
his son's death
and then rides into town. There Jim saves Lufton when he is
almost gunned
down in the street by Frank Reardan and Joe Shotten, Tate's
other hired guns.
After a grateful Amy apologizes to him, Jim leaves town.
While stopped at a
cantina, however, he is confronted by Tate, who now wants him
to make the
purchase offer to Lufton. Disgusted by his friend's greediness,
Jim refuses
to help, and the two men fight each other until Jim knocks Tate
unconscious.
The exhausted, wounded Jim is then saved by Kris, who shows
up with a gun
just as Reardan is about to shoot him. After Amy lovingly
tends to his
injuries, Jim suggests to Lufton that he can help delay Pindalest's
deadline
by a week, enough time for the rancher to round up his now-scattered
cattle.
Believing that Jim intends to kill the agent, Lufton refuses
his offer, and
Jim leaves the ranch in a huff. Amy, however, convinces Jim
to execute his
plan with Pindalest. To that end, Jim confers with the
agent and, posing as
Tate's go-between, tells him that Tate is demanding $3,000 more
for Lufton's
cattle. As hoped, Pindalest declares that he must go to
town for the extra
cash, and once he and Jim are in the open range, Jim reveals
his intention to
hold the agent captive until Lufton has rounded up his cattle.
The next
morning, however, as a snowstorm blows in, Jim is ambushed and
knifed by an
Indian who is in cahoots with Tate. Although Jim soon overwhelms
the Indian,
Pindalest escapes, and Jim flees to Kris's ranch. A concerned
Amy soon
arrives there and insists on fighting Tate, Reardan and Pindalest
alongside
Kris. As the gunfire starts, Amy and Jim declare their
love for each other.
Eventually, Jim regains enough strength to sneak out of the
ranch house and
surprise Reardan and Pindalest. Jim then outdraws Tate,
who dies in his
friend's arms. With Pindalest in custody, Jim and Amy
announce their
impending marriage to a delighted Lufton.
From the AFI Catalog of Feature Films
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 88 min. RKO Radio Pictures;
Distributed by: RKO Radio Pictures;
Directed by: Robert Wise;
Produced by: Theron Warth;
Screenplay by: Lillie Hayward;
Edited by: Samuel E. Beetley;
Director of Photography: Nicholas Musuraca;
Music by: Roy Webb;
Production Design by: Albert S. D'Agostino & Walter E. Keller;
Sound by: John
L. Cass;
Gowns by: Edward
Stevenson;
Make-up by: Gordon Bau;
Hair by: Hazel Rogers.
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Robert Mitchum (Jim Garry), Barbara Bel
Geddes (Amy Lufton), Robert Preston (Tate Riling),
Walter Brennan (Kris Barden), Phyllis Thaxter (Carol Lufton), Frank
Faylen (Jake Pindalest), Tom Tully (John Lufton), Charles McGraw
(Milo Sweet),
Clifton Young (Joe Shotten), Tom Tyler (Frank Reardan),
George Cooper
(Fred Barden), Richard Powers (Ted Elser), Bud
Osborne (Cap Willis), Zon Murray (Nels Titterton), Robert Bray
(Bart Daniels),
Al Ferguson (Chet Avery), Ben Corbett (Mitch Moten),
Joe Devlin
(Barney), Erville Alderson (Settlmeir), Robert
Malcolm (Sheriff Manker), Chris-Pin Martin (Bartender at Commissary),
Ruth Brennan
(Townswoman), Harry Carey Jr. (Cowboy), Hal
Taliaferro
(Cowboy), Al Murphy (Cowboy), and Iron Eyes
Cody (Toma).
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