Yellow Sky

Yellow Sky

By

  • Genre: Crime, Western
  • Release Date: 1948-12-24
  • Runtime: 98 minutes
  • : 6.9
  • Production Company: 20th Century Fox
  • Production Country: United States of America
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6.9/10
6.9
From 111 Ratings

Description

In 1867, a gang led by James "Stretch" Dawson robs a bank and flees into the desert. Out of water, the outlaws come upon a ghost town called Yellow Sky and its only residents, a hostile young woman named Mike and her grandpa. The story is a Western adaptation of William Shakespeare's "The Tempest".

Trailer

Reviews

  • Wuchak

    8
    By Wuchak
    _**Lost men in the Old West willing to kill over lucre and lust**_ In 1867, a band of bank robbers (Gregory Peck, Richard Widmark, Harry Morgan, etc.) flee through the salt flats of the desert Southwest and stumble into a ghost town inhabited only by an old prospector and his comely tomboy granddaughter (James Barton & Anne Baxter). Life-or-death conflicts ensue. “Yellow Sky” (1948) is a top-of-the-line classic B&W Western that borrows the basic premise of Shakespeare’s “The Tempest” and influenced future Westerns, like “The Law and Jake Wade” (1958) and “Day of the Outlaw” (1959), not to mention the sci-fi classic “Forbidden Planet” (1956). There’s even a remake set during the gold rush of South Africa with Vincent Price called “The Jackals” (1967). If you remove the opening and closing score, which is understandably passé, this holds up in the modern day as a psychological adult Western that’s film noir-ish. While some people favor B&W, I don’t (although I can roll with it), and would love to see a colorized version. Anne Baxter was only 24 during filming. The film runs 1 hour, 38 minutes, and was shot at Owens Lake, Death Valley National Monument, and Alabama Hills, just west of Lone Pine, California. GRADE: A-

  • CinemaSerf

    7
    By CinemaSerf
    Gregory Peck ("Stretch") leads a miscreant gang of bank robbers, who are chased by a troop of army cavalry into a deserted gold mining town that's occupied only by a young (and pretty) Anne Baxter ("Mike") and her grandfather James Barton. Desperately thirsty after their trudge across the salt flats, the men are soon suitably revivified - body and soul - and set their sights on this young lady, and on their gold. After quite a few, entertaining, scraps "Stretch" and the feisty woman gradually start to bond, and they make a deal to split their golden horde - worth some $50,000 - 50/50 . The only thing is, they have to dig it out of their collapsed mine. "Dude" (Richard Widmark) is less convinced by this plan, and as their digging continues, and a tribe of Apache - frustrated with the limitations of their reservation lives - arrive, what trust there was between the gang members becomes seriously compromised. William Wellman and photographer Joe MacDonald have worked wonders with the arid, inhospitable (Death Valley) scenario for this film. The characters allow their surroundings to compliment their predicaments well; the dialogue is sparing with plenty of action to keep the pace up. The ending is a bit rushed, and there is something of the "Calamity Jane" about Baxter's performance (without any singing) that I struggled with - but it's got an atmosphere to it that renders it well worth watching.

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