Take One (Jul-Aug 1971)

Hannie Caulder is a serious western, ostensibly about a lady gunfighter, but more deeply concerned with the price of Power (‘‘Power” in the magical sense of power over objects and events). Director Burt Kennedy (The Rounders, Welcome to Hard Times, The War Wagon, etc.) frequently builds his non-comic films on allegorical foundations, and such is the case with Hannie Caulder. After a recent series of potboilers like Return of the Seven, Hannie signals the return of Burt Ken nedy. The film opens as the Clemens brothers, three demented outlaws played by Ernest Borgnine, Jack Elam and Strother Martin (and more than a little reminiscent of the Three Stooges) flub a bank robbery. Fleeing from the Federales, they stop briefly to rape Hannie Caulder (Raquel Welch), kill her husband and burn her house. As Hannie mourns, half-dressed among the ashes, a_ professional bountyhunter named Thomas Luther Price (Robert Culp) approaches in search of water. Hannie sees in him the means for her revenge, and convinces him to teach her how to use a gun. Price takes her to Mexico, where master-gunsmith Bailey (Christopher Lee) builds a revolver for her while she learns how to shoot. When Hannie is ready to take on the Clemenses, Price attempts to dissuade her (“Win or lose, you lose, Hannie Caulder.’), but she is intent on revenge. Finally, in a vain attempt to protect her, Price is killed by the eldest of the brothers. Alone, Hannie faces each of the Clemenses in turn and, with the help of a mysterious gunslinger dressed in black, kills them. While the plot “reads” like a standard western, Kennedy sets up resOnances that make it apparent there’s much more happening beneath the surface than on it. The Clemens brothers, bumblingly comic yet deadly, are very much like the demons of the medieval Passion Plays — and are by no means to be under-estimated. To fight them, Hannie needs more than skill — she needs Power. In the long, vaguely mysterious sequence at the gunsmith’s, a ritual begins which sets strange forces in action — forces which have not been neutralized at the end of the film. The suggestion is that, once set in motion, such forces cannot be neutralized. They are the forces of death. Bailey, the gunsmith, is a character rich in associations. Like the demi god Vulcan (the weapon-maker to the Greek gods), Bailey is more than a master craftsman — he knows “a few tricks” to make Hannie’s revolver light yet strong. The sequence in which he casts the barrel and tempers it is very much a ritualized action — suggestive of the forging of a magical weapon. While Bailey works, Hannie undergoes her own ritual — a ritual of purification and ruthless dedication to the arts of death. Although she and Price are drawn to one another, they never touch; as a witch preparing for a Rite of Power, Hannie must remain celibate. Furthermore, we feel that Price intuitively knows better than to mess with Hannie. She’s learning sorcery along with marksmanship, and Price, a mere human, is afraid of being caught in the crossfire of a magical battle between a witch and three demons. Finally, there is the mysterious “black man” who first appears shortly after Hannie learns to shoot. Price and Bailey, who are both dedicated to the craft of killing, know and fear him — but we never learn who he is. In fact, he functions as Hannie’s demon — the objectified symbol of her Power — conjured into being by her passion for revenge. Price is a pragmatic killer, Hannie is a passionate one; hence, although Price fears the black man, Hannie (who must dedicate her entire self to death) is stuck with him as a familiar. When Hannie rides into town to gun down the Clemenses, the sheriff immediately realizes that she is to be shunned. Not only is she a woman dressed in men’s clothing (like the witch Joan of Arc), but the aura of power and pride that surrounds her is terrifying. The proper position of women is made clear by the madam of the local brothel, when she says to Hannie, “| don’t remember hiring you, honey.’’ Women are either wives or whores. Price comments, at one point, that Hannie ‘‘wants to be a man.” He’s wrong. She doesn’t want to be a man; she wants to be a witch. Yet Hannie doesn’t quite make it; she never completely loses her humanity, and for this reason she never internalizes the black man — who must help her as an outside actor. At the end, she rides off with the black man behind her, like a shadow — her demon lover. Price is dead — he’s the price she has had to pay. She has forsaken the Christian ethic (not for nothing is his name Thomas Luther Price) to embrace the older, pagan creed of blood, death and vengeance. Hannie has sold her soul for her skill, and the black man is there to collect. Like Hannie, Kennedy is good — but not quite good enough. The allegory is fascinating, but it isn’t integrated as smoothly as it might be with the plot. As a result, the film is a trifle forced — THE INSIDE SCOOP the media game compiled and edited by dick macdonald S GTMER VOICES i! CLAN + UU": ORG OFFENSE FOR THE PEBPLE 1:0" PEOPLE PROFILES: 20 iis rece} 10) MNase a 30) YOUR RENT -18knew HLL) HANGS EL ii. 1S PEOPLE PROALES: Miia! "7" ELMER PERSE Soe jot Ut BEBRARGMS Sta tS vn: TW TELEGRAM: ils 8ST eT T SMUAOUES TSS) BOSSIER 7 1 Tacot 1] Narre GUL eS TE CORPORATE PRESS This 240-page autumn book is not an exposé as such, but it’s the closest thing to a self-analysis of the Canadian media as you'll find. Everything from the tabloid press (fabrication factories) to Harry Boyle of the Canadian Radio Television Commission. From Knowlton Nash of the CBC to the sports-beat syndrome. Senator Davey. The corporate press and the weeklies and the campus papers. Beryl Fox. Interviewing and research and the public’s §rightto-know and press freedom. Funny mastheads and profiles of Graham Spry and Merrill Denison and Elmer Ferguson and Charlie Edwards and others. McLuhan. Norman Smith. Patrick McFadden. Canadian Press. Dossier Z. Barrie Zwicker. Well, the list simply is too long... . The Media Game is a selection of the outstanding material which has appeared during the first two years of existence of Content, the national Canadian monthly magazine for journalists and other media folk. Compiled by Dick MacDonald. Worth having in your library. Fine for gift-giving. Visit your bookstore. $3.50 only. Or write: Content Publishing, Suite 404, 1411 Crescent Street, Montreal 107, P.Q., and enclose cheque or money order. Your copy(ies ) will be rushed, postagepaid. 31