- The biggest surprise in William Wellman's excellent The Ox-Bow Incident arrives at the film's end, when an advertisement for war bonds flashes onscreen. It's a shocking reminder that the film was made in the midst of the Second World War and not, say, seven years later during the height of McCarthyism. I suppose the lesson here is that all lynch mobs have certain qualities in common, regardless of whether they erupt in mid-20th century American politics or fictional accounts of the Old West. Fear, anger, and violence are the orders of the day, and things never end well.
- In The Ox-Bow Incident, it's news of cattle rustling and the murder of a man named Kinkaid that riles up the citizens of a small Western community one fateful afternoon. While Bridger's Wells is normally a sleepy town whose only pastimes are to "eat, sleep, drink, play poker, or fight," Gil Carter (Henry Fonda) and Art Croft (Harry Morgan) have the bad luck to be passing through just as things start to liven up. Quickly realizing that it will "look kinda funny" if the only two strangers in town don't play along, Carter and Croft accompany the gathering mob on its mission of vengeance. Leading the pack is Jeff Farnley (Marc Lawrence), whose flaming temper is fanned by the rhetoric of the military mountebank, Major Tetley (Frank Conroy). Local loudmouths like the no-nonsense Jenny Grier (Jane Darwell) and the cowardly town drunk (Paul Hurst) help to whip the townspeople up into a frenzy while the town's thuggish lone deputy (Dick Rich) lends the mob an unjustified claim to legitimacy. The few voices of caution are limited to the town's sensible storekeeper (Harry Davenport), the Major's delicate son (William Eythe), and a timid black preacher (Leigh Whipper) who has seen the horrors of lynching firsthand.
- Once the mob stumbles upon three itinerant ranchers, things quickly go from bad to worse. The boss of the outfit, a man named Martin (Dana Andrews), admits to having purchased some of Kinkaid's cattle, but regrettably lacks a bill of sale. His companions, a senile old man (Francis Ford) and a rebellious Mexican gambler (Anthony Quinn), hardly add much credibility to the mix. Why not take these men back to town and put them before a judge and jury? As Farnley explains, "lawyer's tricks" only impede justice and "Kincaid didn't have six months to decide if he wanted to die." A vote is taken but, even with Carter and Croft's support, the three men are condemned to die. In a lesser film, the Sheriff would have arrived just in the nick of time to grant a last-minute reprieve. In this bleak examination of misguided revenge, the Sun rises and three innocent men get hanged before the Sheriff shows up to reveal the truth of the matter.
- The Ox-Bow Incident forms an interesting contrast with another, much later Henry Fonda picture, 12 Angry Men. In that film, an equally improbable collection of circumstantial evidence leads to a near miscarriage of justice. In this one, the film's lesson in lawfulness arrives just a little too late. More intriguing still are the differences between the characters played by Fonda. His juror #8 is an impeccably (and perhaps even implausibly) honest and upright man. Gil Carter, on the other hand, is a regular guy who starts fights, holds a grudge against an old flame (Mary Beth Hughes, in a largely extraneous role), and only takes a stand when the mob is poised to kill three innocent men. The film's coda, in which Carter promises to deliver Martin's letter to his widow, demonstrates the man's fundamental decency, but I think the film's message is that the regular people are the ones who need to remain vigilant.
- Where to begin with the casting? Francis Ford is John Ford's older brother. Margaret "Wicked Witch" Hamilton played a maid.
- This is one of those great films with an extra scene. Why did they have to introduce Rose and her husband?
