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Man of the West (1958)
In Anthony Mann's last western:
- the opening scene - a robbery (on a train bound
for Fort Worth, Texas) - when ex-outlaw and Texan hero Link Jones
(Gary Cooper), with a dark and troubled past, lost the savings
of his community of Good Hope (to be used to hire a schoolteacher);
he was abandoned with cardsharp con-man Sam Beasley (Arthur O'Connell)
and Crosscut Saloon singer Billie Ellis (Julie London)
- the trio's on-foot arrival at an isolated, broken-down
ranch house where Link, now reformed, revealed he had once been raised
and trained as a gang member to rob banks; inside, they found the
thieving train robbers and their patriarchal leader Dock Tobin (Lee
J. Cobb) - Link's uncle
- the notorious scene of drunken, twisted and violent
outlaw Coaley Tobin (Jack Lord) threatening Billie Ellis by forcing
her to strip down to her underwear; he forced Link - his own cousin
- to watch by sitting him on a chair: ("Come on in, Link, you're
just in time...Your gal's gonna undress for us. We saved a front
row seat for ya! Ha, ha, ha! It's gonna be a big show"); Coaley
instructed the humiliated Billie to undress, and to force her to
begin the striptease, he wielded a knife: ("You see this? (He
held up his knife) Now start takin' off your clothes. What's the
matter with your girl, Link? Make her do it...It's gonna be right
now....Start takin' off your clothes....(He held a knife at Link's
throat) You're not talkin' us out of this. Now undress. Start with
the shoes. Wanna see me cut him? Huh? Ha-ha! (She removed her shoes)
The stockings. (She removed her black stockings) Get up. That shirt
thing, now, peel it off. (She unbuttoned her red top) I don't have
to tell you what's next, do I? (She unfastened her red dress) Come
on. Come on! (She removed her white blouse) How are ya enjoying this
cousin? Huh? Huh?...Get that petticoat off!")
- Link was forced to rejoin the robbers for a bank
heist in the town of Lassoo (eventually discovered to be a ghost-town)
- the concluding vengeful retaliation of Link against
Coaley - by goading him into a brutal and epic fistfight (without
Coaley's gunbelts or knife), and then forcing him to strip off his
clothes!; Sam interceded when Coaley angrily shot at Link, and was
killed; Coaley was then shot by another of Link's cousins, Claude
Tobin (John Dehner)
- by the film's end, Link had killed off a number of
gang members, but found that in his absence, Billie had been raped
(off-screen) and beaten; in retaliation in the film's climactic end,
he killed Dock and reclaimed the stolen funds, and then Billie and
Link went their separate ways
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Billie Ellis (Julie London)
Knife Held to Throat of Link Jones by Coaley Tobin (Jack
Lord)
Forced to Strip
Vengeful Retaliation Against Coaley
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