Yellow Sky

Studio: Kino Lorber Studio Classics

Jul 12, 2016 Web Exclusive By Stephen Danay

Following a bank robbery, a gang of outlaws led by Stretch Dawson evade pursuit by riding into a massive, desolate area of the desert. On the verge of death, the outlaws stumble across an abandoned mining town called Yellow Sky. There they discover an old man, his feisty granddaughter, a hidden cache of gold, and betrayal in their midst.

Yellow Sky makes for a fine companion piece to last week’s Kino Lorber release of The Ox-Bow Incident. Both films were directed by William A. Wellman and written and produced by Lamar Trotti. The similarities are specific as well as broad. The street and the saloon the gang visit at the beginning of the Yellow Sky are the exact same street and saloon that Henry Fonda encounters in The Ox-Bow Incident. The bartender is played by the same actor and both groups of men admire the same painting above the bar. The films diverge in both location and theme after the first scenes, but the recycled sets and actors give the viewer a sense that these films are taking place in a shared universe, as though all myths of the Old West, great and small, are equally true.

Yellow Sky lacks the searing social commentary of The Ox-Bow Incident, but remains a noticeably rougher picture than most popular Westerns of the 1940s. This tone is best exemplified in the casting of the noble, genteel Gregory Peck as Stretch Dawson, a slightly chattier and more sociable version of the amoral, Eastwood era anti-heroes that would redefine the Western genre in the decades to come. He’s the kind of character who announces his place on the moral spectrum by only aggressively flirting with and harassing Anne Baxter’s character while keeping his men from actively assaulting her. As misogynist as the film looks to modern eyes, the filmmaker’s attempts to explore the collision between a self-reliant woman and a group of violent, domineering men is an honest one. Peck and Baxter are both predictably excellent, as is all-time great character actor Richard Widmark as Dude, Dawson’s treacherous second-in-command.

Loosely based on William Shakespeare’s The Tempest, Yellow Sky shares the Bard’s tendency toward formless, stop-start narratives, but more than makes up for it in character work and atmosphere. Kino Lorber’s new Blu-ray makes the gorgeous black and white shots of Death Valley and the California desert look like they were filmed yesterday, as do the drops of sweat on Peck’s brow and the cracked lips of his thirsty men. The only special feature - other than a trailer gallery - is a commentary track once again featuring William Wellman Jr. Without the benefit of a co-commentator, Wellman focuses heavily on behind-the-scenes anecdotes and his own memories of visiting his father’s film sets as a child, rather than any thematic or stylistic exploration of the film. Yellow Sky more than stands on its own however, purely as a genre exercise and a piece of classic Hollywood entertainment.

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