Cold War Thrills in The Bedford Incident

Richard Widmark as Captain Finlander.

The 1960s was a grand decade for top-notch Cold War thrillers such as The Manchurian Candidate (1962), Seven Days in May (1964), and Fail Safe (1964). Although it falls a little short of those aforementioned films, The Bedford Incident (1965) remains a first-rate drama that crackles with tension from start to finish.

Richard Widmark stars as Captain Eric Finlander, who commands the U.S.S. Bedford, a destroyer whose purpose is to monitor Soviet submarines and "prevent by threat a certain course of action by the enemy." The Bedford's new chief physician, a reserve officer named Potter (Martin Balsam), clashes almost immediately with Finlander. The captain belittles Potter by stating he did not request a new medical officer and holds reserve officers in low regard. 

Potter and Ben Munceford, a journalist on board to write a story about Finlander, soon detect on a pervasive atmosphere of apprehension aboard the ship. The crew works long hours, remains constantly on high alert, and are discouraged from going to sick bay. Munceford (Sidney Poitier) also picks up on Finlander's unbridled excitement when the Bedford discovers a Soviet submarine patrolling near Greenland. The captain insists that his mission is only deterrence, but Munceford begins to wonder if Finlander is obsessed with destroying the Soviet vessel.

Sidney Poitier as Munceford.

The Bedford Incident is a slow burn that methodically builds suspense to its unexpected climax. There are no action scenes. Rather, James B. Harris--in his directorial debut--is content to let the screenplay do the heavy lifting. Harris, who worked with Stanley Kubrick on several films (including Paths of Glory), directs with an unobtrusive, sure hand. The film's most memorable scenes--when Potter confronts Finlander and when Munceford interviews the captain--could have been lifted from a stage play. That's meant to be a compliment as it shows Harris's total trust in his actors to deliver the drama.

Veteran screenwriter James Poe's adaptation of the novel by Mark Rascovich wisely avoids turning The Bedford Incident into a contemporary Moby Dick. Yes, Finlander is obsessed with the Soviet submarine, but his sense of duty keeps him from pursuing personal goals at the expense of imperiling his country. This internal dilemma is what makes the final outcome in The Bedford Incident so devastating.

It's easy to see why Richard Widmark, who also served as one of the producers, was drawn to The Bedford Incident. It provides him with one of the best roles of his distinguished career. I love the aforementioned lively interview between Munceford and Finlander in which one can see the latter trying to dampen his temper and choose his words carefully because of his distrust of the press. It's a master class in acting.

Martin Balsam and (far right) Wally Cox.

Sidney Poitier is content to play Munceford as a catalyst. We never learn much about the journalist, but through him, we learn a lot about Finlander, Dr. Potter, and a former German U-boat commander on board as a NATO observer (the excellent Eric Portman). James MacArthur and Wally Cox are also present in small but pivotal roles. Look quickly and you may be able to spot Donald Sutherland and Ed Bishop (UFO) as crewmen.

The Bedford Incident was the third teaming of Richard Widmark and Sidney Poitier, following No Way Out (1950) and The Long Ships (1964). When Widmark died in 2008, his friend Poitier said: "His creative work is indelible on film and will be there to remind us of what he was as an artist and a human being."

Van Cleef Seeks Revenge; Holden Steals Cattle!

Lee Van Cleef as Ryan.

Death Rides a Horse (1967).  As young Bill Meceita watches a vicious outlaw gang slaughter his family, he notes a distinguishing feature on each killer--a scar, an earring, a tattoo, a spur. Two decades later, a dead cowboy provides a key clue that reignites Bill's desire to avenge his family. As he tracks down the villains, he keeps encountering a man named Ryan (Lee Van Cleef). Recently paroled, the older Ryan has his own reasons for finding the same outlaws. Inevitably, Ryan and Bill team up to take down the outlaw's gang leader, who has become a successful (albeit crooked) businessman.

John Philip Law as Bill.

Like the previous year's blockbuster The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, Death Rides a Horse was written Luciano Vincenzoni, features music by Ennio Morricone, and, of course, stars Van Cleef. Thematically, though, it shares more in common with Leone's For a Few Dollars More (1965). Each film features two men pursuing the same villain independently, though they eventually have to team up to accomplish their goal. Some film critics have claimed the two Spaghetti Westerns also share a mentor-protégé premise. That may be true of Death Rides a Horse, but Van Cleef's ex-colonel and Clint Eastwood's bounty hunter do not fit that mold in For a Few Dollars More. 

In the hands of director Giulio Petroni, Death Rides a Horse is an above-average Spaghetti Western punctuated with a handful of well-staged shootouts. The relationship between Ryan and Bill (John Philip Law) is well-developed, though the big twist is obvious from the moment Ryan is shown on screen. 

Unlike Eastwood, who moved back to Hollywood after his Spaghetti Western hits, Van Cleef remained in Europe until the late 1970s. His most successful non-Leone Western was probably Sabata (1969), though Death Rides a Horse has attained cult status over the years.

Alvarez Kelly (1966).  During the American Civil War, cattleman Alvarez Kelly delivers a herd of steers to the Union Army, who needs beef to feed its troops. However, Kelly barely has time to count his profits before he's kidnapped by the Confederates. They want him to help them steal the cattle for their troops!

Loosely based on a real-life event called the Beefsteak Raid, Alvarez Kelly squanders a promising premise and a strong cast. The film's central focus seems to be the relationship between the apathetic Kelly (William Holden) and a passionate Confederate colonel (Richard Widmark). To drive a deeper wedge between the men, the script includes a hasty subplot in which Kelly helps the colonel's fiancée (a poorly-utilized Janice Rule) escape from the surrounded Virginia capital of Richmond. Despite this, the audience is led to believe that Kelly and the colonel can still become "frenemies."

Standard fare like Alvarez Kelly and Paris When It Sizzles (1964) stifled Holden's career in the mid-1960s. Fortunately, it got a huge shot in the arm when Sam Peckinpah cast Holden as the lead in The Wild Bunch (1969). Richard Widmark wasn't as lucky, though he got a juicy role as an NYC detective in Madigan (1968) and its belated TV series (which aired under one of NBC's Mystery Movies in 1972-73).

Family Discord in Edward Dmytryk's "Broken Lance"

The 1954 Western Broken Lance is a curious film that is both overly familiar and more nuanced than it first appears.

Father Tracy and sons Holliman, O'Brien, Widmark, and Wagner.

The plot focuses on the friction between cattle baron Spencer Tracy and three of his four sons (Richard Widmark, Hugh O'Brien, and Earl Holliman). It'd be easy to paint the brotherly trio as the film's villains and youngest son Robert Wagner as the hero. But the reality is that Richard Widmark's bitter son is smarter than his father; he understands the necessity for change and embraces it. His father, meanwhile, adheres to doing business the same way as usual--by bulldozing his way through all obstacles.

Wagner (sporting a Fabian hair-do) and Tracy.

Adding to the family discord, Tracy favors youngest son Robert Wagner with the fatherly affection he denied the other three. They grew up as he was building his empire. They toiled alongside their then-widowed father from an early age, rarely earning even a word of praise. Thus, their acrimony is understandable to an extent and it's hard to fault them when they take advantage of their father's folly.

As for their younger sibling, he has his heart in the right place. However, he is also too eager to play the hero. When Wagner's character rashly takes the blame for his father's actions and winds up in prison, it's hard to feel sorry for him. He also seems too eager to play the martyr willing to take the punishment for his dead old dad.

Edward G. Robinson in House of Strangers.

Yet, while the family relationships hold one's attention for awhile, Broken Lance can't overcome a pervasive feeling of familiarity. Perhaps, that's because you've seen House of Strangers, a 1949 film noir written by Philip Yordan and starring Edward G. Robinson as the headstrong family patriarch and Richard Conte as the good brother.

Just five years later, Yordan transplanted the same plot to the Old West and won an Oscar for Best Writing, Motion Picture Story, for Broken Lance. Yes, he won an Oscar for a writing a story based on a screenplay written for a previous film! This gets even more interesting, because some reliable sources consider both films to be adapted from Jerome Weidman's 1941 novel I'll Never Go There Anymore. Of course, one could also argue the influence of Shakespeare's King Lear.

Tracy and Katy Jurado.

The strong cast--which also includes Jean Peters and Katy Jurado--fails to inject much-needed excitement. Spencer Tracy could play a take-charge cattle baron in his sleep. As his wife--the calm voice of reason--Jurado earned an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress.

Director Edward Dmytryk, whom I tend to associate with film noir (e.g., Cornered) and tight dramas, sets the action against some breathtaking vistas. He teamed with Tracy and Wagner again two years later for The Mountain.

This was his sixth film following his return to the U.S. in 1951 after four years overseas. He left the country after refusing to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) as one of the "Hollywood Ten." When Dmytryk returned to the States, he was arrested and served six months in a West Virginia prison before agreeing to name names before the HUAC in 1951. In his 1996 book Odd Man Out: A Memoir of the Holywood Ten, he explains his change of heart about testifying: "[If] I were going to be a martyr, I wanted the privilege of choosing my martyrdom. . . ."

I met Dmytryk in the late 1970s when he gave a guest lecture at Indiana University. He signed his name alongside the entry about him in my copy of The Filmgoer's Companion.

This post is part of the Classic Movie Blog Association's Banned and Blacklisted Blogathon. Check out all the entries on the blogathon schedule by clicking here.