THE MOVIEGOER

Mob psychology, since the Greeks, has been one of the dramatist's most popular subjects. "The Ox-Bow Incident" is a movie that depicts very accurately and, in terms of American frontier life, what havoe a frenzied crowd can wreak. The picture describes a lynching in the old West--the mistaken lynching of three innocent men by a mob too hungry for revenge to try the men fairly, Because it deals with the mob's crime realistically, because it avoids the melodrama that manages to ruin so many westerns, "The Ox-Bow Incident" is an excellent American movie.

The realism comes chiefly from the absence of the typical villain-hero relationship that marks the average movie plot. Henry Fonda has the leading part but he only rebels against the mob; he cannot stop the lynching. Fonda takes the position of a muse that realizes, even raises his voice against the injustice, yet when the end comes, he has really been only a bystander. And the villains too are not singly responsible but are rather cowards whose weaknesses combined make a criminal potent enough to kill three men.

Most of the credit, probably goes to director William Wellman, for the co-ordination of all the effects that went towards making the sombre atmosphere of guilty killing was letter perfect: The unshaven faces, the drabness of the set at the picture's outset, and the reflection in each character's attitude of the weakness that found such ready companionship in the lynching mob. The music, too, served its purpose--not perhaps so well as in such a western as "Duel in the Sun"--but the dull repitition of a prairie tune dampened any tendencies toward melodrama.

And, of course, the individual actors must get their applause. Henry Fonda, Dana Andrews and William Eythe were probably better than in most of their other pictures. Andrews was exceptionally good in the lynching scene itself. The whole mob, for that matter, formed a brilliant supporting cast.

"The Ox-Bow Incident" is about ten years old now but still popular enough and fine enough to be revived annually. If you've never caught one of these revivals and want to see a western that can possibly beat "The Treasures of Sierra Madre," don't miss the present bill at the Center.

The second feature, "Somewhere in the Night," has a clever enough plot but falls into the pitfall of melodrama that its running mate escapes.