It's As Plain As Black And White!

The Western Channel is currently airing an old Kirk Douglas movie, “Lonely Are the Brave”. Kirk hadn’t given his trusty horse, Whiskey, his first pat before I was transported to 1962. That was the summer the picture was released and when David Paschall talked me into going down to the Park Theatre with him to see it. I wasn’t too interested, now if David had been a good looking girl it might have been different…….

Ye gads! The thing was in black and white! This was 1962 for goodness sakes; we had Cinemascope and Technicolor! And it was set in modern times! There was going to be no posse rushing to the rescue, no dusty cattle drives and no wagon train attacks. This movie wasn’t going to have a sinister saloon owner vying treacherously to steal the old man’s ranch. All we were going to get was an hour and a half of looking at the dent in Kirk’s chin.

I had paid a whole quarter to see a modern day western filmed without the benefit of color! Hollywood had tricked me again! The management had my money, David seemed perfectly content and I certainly didn’t have any place else to be. I settled in and quickly went to pondering on exactly how Kirk shaved around that hole.

He played a character named Jack Burns. Ole Jack didn’t cotton much to modern times. The movie might have been set in 1962 but the character sure wasn’t! Too many laws, too much bureaucracy, the world seemingly abounded in red tape and personal governmental agendas. Jack longed for a simpler time. An era less constraining…… I had trouble in school spotting the symbolism Miss Polly was always pointing out in those poems by Keats and Shelly, but I understood immediately Jack’s penchant for cutting any fence he came across.

He didn’t carry an I.D. He had no social security card, no driver’s license, no Diner’s card. He pointed out emphatically that he needed no identification papers, he KNEW who he was! ’Course, this didn’t sit well with the local “powers that be” after the fight with the one armed man. And let me say quickly, there wasn’t nothing wrong with Jack’s sense of justice. He put one arm behind his back so the fight would be even-up.

The overbearing police playing the authoritarian role couldn’t understand Jack’s individualistic penchant. He “ain’t like us”. They pushed and shoved him a mite. I reckon that was so we could get the “overlord”, “underdog” picture fixed in our minds. But a barroom brawl wasn’t that big of a deal in a small western town in 1962, they decided to let Jack go. He hit a deputy right square on the jaw. Jack had to walk his own line, make his own statement.

And he wanted to be put in jail so he could break his good friend out. Apparently he’d ridden a long way and cut a lot of fences to do just that! But the friend only had a short time left and was through “bucking the system”.  Jack sat in the jail cell and shook his head. He couldn’t understand. He explained about the fences and the “no trespassing”, “no hunting”, “no hiking”, “keep-out”, “restricted”, “closed area” signs. Jack felt constrained. Either we will live free and open or we will live caged and subservient. His world was as black and white as the movie. 

You can imagine how long a man like Jack stayed cooped up. He pulled a file from his boot, sawed through a couple of bars and made his escape to the freedom he so desperately desired. The freedom he so thoughtfully understood. The freedom he would relinquish to no man or authority.

He saddled Whiskey, who he knew, unlike his friend, would not let him down and “cut a trail” for old Mexico. His crimes so far (they didn’t know to charge him with fence cutting) added up to a fight in a bar and hitting a policeman. For this the long arm of government called out every available agency to hunt him down. They sent jeeps, walkie talkies, helicopters, the highway patrol, deputies of every persuasion, bounty hunters, meddlesome reporters and the kitchen sink after him.

Even the most non symbolist among us couldn’t help but note—that was a lot of show, a lot of fire power and a sinful amount of tax money to find one, at best, quasi lawbreaker who simply wanted to be left alone. Think of the poor that could have been fed; the jobless that might have been helped; the real criminals that could have been apprehended; or, at the very least, they might have bought a prosthesis for the one armed guy.

The rest of the picture zoned in on Jack and Whiskey’s race for Mexico. Jack naturally had to shoot the helicopter down. He took the obligatory bullet in the leg, depended on his horse and never doubted for one second his right to seek his own manifest destiny. 

He doesn’t make it, of course. He gets run over by a semi-truck loaded with toilets. You talk about symbolism! This wasn’t “It’s a Wonderful Life”. I saw an interview with Kirk Douglas years later where he said this was his favorite of all his movies. It was for me, too.

I hear that a re-make of this movie is in the works. They’re looking for a cocoa colored horse and an actor with a dimple in his chin. They are going to bring it up to date……by not changing it at all!

Respectfully,

Kes