This next phase of GIFfest 2012 returns to the movies, and the westerns, with some slices of Hang ’em High, the 1968 western notable because it was the first one of Clint Eastwood’s westerns that was not filmed in Italy.
I’ve already noted GIFfed some of the continuity problems in the opening credits, now let’s get to the action. Right in the opening sceme, Captain Wilson, the leader of the mob that wrongly accuses Clintwood’s character Cooper of murder, issues the “Hang “em” command that puts the plot in motion.
Yes, that is Alan Hale Jr pitching in with the bad guys – how can the Skipper do that? What will Gilligan think?
What follows are 16 GIFfable scenes from the 1948 John Ford Western, Fort Apache. Rented from the nifty little library in Pine, AZ, the movie appeals on several levels, first because of the iconic scenery of Monument Valley it might be 100 miles from the real Fort Apache). Yes, the mittens are familiar, but it’s that vast space the Ford used so well to back narrate the story.
You also have some name stars, John Wayne, Henry Fonda, even a adult-ish) Shirley Temple. It’s a slice a bit different from the typical cowboys versus Indians, though both are present, but really dives into the tension of the white settles who had lived long enough in the southwest to appreciate and understand the land and te people versus the Eastern presence represented by Henry Fonda’s Colonel Thursday, who blindly put his stature, class, and textbok ideas above the common sense of those like John Wayne’s Sergeant York.
Among all of this is also a bit of slapstick humor, especially the local Irish Cavalry men, who had little interest or respect for Thursday’s formality.
What follows is not a recap of the story, but some key moments that, to me, are drawn out by the GIF process if isolating scenes and ten narrowing them down even more to 3-14 frames.
