argues, was expressed beautifully in the film with the shooting of a homesteader played by Elisha Cook Jr. He wanted, as he put it, to show what a single shell from a. “In westerns, people would shoot people and then they would get up and shoot back. “He used to say, ‘John Wayne uses a six-gun like a guitar,’ ” Stevens Jr. When he returned home, he was shocked at the reckless portrayal of violence on screen. He also witnessed Nazi atrocities when he was present at the liberation of the Dachau concentration camp. Stevens hit the beach at Normandy to record the Allied invasion on D-day. “It was the first film where I was on location and really had a job.”īefore World War II, Stevens had made his reputation by directing such comedies as “The More the Merrier,” “Swing Time” and “Woman of the Year” and action-adventures like “Gunga Din.” But his movies became more serious and introspective after his war experiences.Īs leader of a battalion of camera crews, Army Lt. “I had to write down every shot and every angle and every camera setup,” he recalls. was 17 and worked on the film as the company clerk. When “Shane” went into production in 1951, Stevens Jr. And Jack Palance is terrifying as the evil gunslinger, Jack Wilson. Brandon de Wilde, who was just 9, is perfection as Joey Starrett, their young son who idolizes Shane. Van Heflin plays the solid patriarch of the family, Joe Starrett, and Jean Arthur, in her last film role, is his wife, Marian.
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