I saw a write up on this recently but can't find it in search or on TCM. Anyway, I DVR'd it around 2:30 this a.m. on The Western Channel, and thoroughly enjoyed it this morning around 8:00 before my neighborhood woke up.
That other writeup compared it to Trooper Hook with Joel McCrae and Barbara Stanwyck. It is very similar in some ways, but different in others. In The Stalking Moon, the Indian is chasing them to get his son back, but in . . . Hook, her husband was unaware she was alive. In Hook, McCrae is his usual lovable, talkative self and Stanwyck finally comes around and explains her predicament. In . . . Moon not until nearly the end of the movie does Eva Marie Saint give any explanation.
Big, quiet, but sensitive Gregory Peck senses something is off kilter, but knows better than to question this poor woman who has been a captive for a little more than 10 years. It's obvious to him that she has endured a lot, besides having the little boy. Also he cannot bond with the boy at all, although he does try, as McCrae was able to do.
There is quite a bit of shooting, killing and dying, but this was from the 50's and nothing is in your face - just enough sound and facial expression for you to guess what is happening off screen.
This is a good action film with a lot of great scenery, and as I said, you have to think while watching. If I ever learn how to get movies off my permanent DVR tape and onto a DVD disk, I will revisit it probably some time next year.
Besides Peck, Eva Marie Saint, and Robert Forster, the other participants have very few lines (including the lead actors), it is a very quiet movie with limited dialog, but because of that, you are happy to watch the movie to learn what will happen next.
Anne
THE STALKING MOON
THE STALKING MOON
Anne
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klondike
Actually, The Stalking Moon was released in 1968 (I remember going to see it in my freshman year in high school), and I recall that it was considered by reviewers at the time to be pretty grim stuff, a true "adult western" . . .
Little did they anticipate the groundswell of popularity for the films of Sergio Leone looming on the horizon!
Little did they anticipate the groundswell of popularity for the films of Sergio Leone looming on the horizon!
That's amazing. I would have thought by 1968 critics would have seen enough for the little bit in this movie to cause comment.
Anne
Anne
Anne
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I pulled this up again because it was a bad night for sleeping and at 2:30 a.m., I found myself watching again and I wanted to comment on Eva Marie Saint.
Normally you find her as the elegant but untouchable kind of 'mistress of the house' lady as in Exodus. Yet turn around and she's the femme fatale of North by Northwest. As the seemingly immigrant girl in On the Waterfront, she breaks your heart in her patient wait for the immature Brando character, and the stuttering escaped prisoner of 36 Hours. I don't think I've ever seen her do any kind of comedy or role with minor comedy thrown into the mix. Whatever role she plays however, is done with special eloquence and truth. I've seen pictures of her of late and she is another one who seems to have accepted age gracefully. When I was younger, I always felt she would be rather snobbish due to the parts she played, but now when I'm older, I see a woman who was probably very comfortable with who and what she was and is.
Anne
Normally you find her as the elegant but untouchable kind of 'mistress of the house' lady as in Exodus. Yet turn around and she's the femme fatale of North by Northwest. As the seemingly immigrant girl in On the Waterfront, she breaks your heart in her patient wait for the immature Brando character, and the stuttering escaped prisoner of 36 Hours. I don't think I've ever seen her do any kind of comedy or role with minor comedy thrown into the mix. Whatever role she plays however, is done with special eloquence and truth. I've seen pictures of her of late and she is another one who seems to have accepted age gracefully. When I was younger, I always felt she would be rather snobbish due to the parts she played, but now when I'm older, I see a woman who was probably very comfortable with who and what she was and is.
Anne
Anne
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