User reviews

The director, John Sturges, is remembered for westerns – Gunfight at the OK Corral, The Magnificent Seven, Last Train from Gun Hill etc – and The Capture has a touch of that genre as the movie opens with Lew Ayres on the run from the Mexican Federales somewhere in those dark Mexican hills.

The story is interesting on three levels: first, it has a Freudian element with Lew Ayres (playing an ex-oilman, Lin Vanner) suffering from a guilt complex, one that he acquired after killing, in haste, a man he thought was responsible for a payroll robbery; second, it's also a "whodunit" as Lin eventually tries to find out who really did steal the payroll; and third, the story is written by Niven Busch who also wrote the screenplay for Pursued, another psychological western which also starred Teresa Wright (and Robert Mitchum) in 1947.

If you've seen Pursued, then you'll know that movie was photographed in very stark black and white – and a lot of it at night. This film follows that same format but, in my opinion, it was not done as well as the former movie. However, it's still good to look at.

Lin Vanner tells the story mostly in flashback, while he rests at the house of a priest – and as he waits for the police to catch up with him. As stories go, it's somewhat pedestrian and predictable, but it does attempt to present for the viewer a very troubled man's need to resolve the doubts he has about personal motivation, integrity and courage. I'd seen Lew Ayres in other films, notably All Quiet on the Western Front, but I felt that other actors would have been better cast; somehow, his rendition of the character just didn't seem to be tough enough to carry on. Robert Mitchum would have been appropriate in the role, I think. Teresa Wright (as Ellen Tevlin), on the other hand, gave another competent performance as the embittered widow of the man, Sam Tevlin, whom Lin Vanner had killed. (Perhaps the studio thought it was too much to have Teresa Wright and Robert Mitchum in another psychological western so soon after Pursued?)

It was great to see Duncan Renaldo (as Carlos) appear, however briefly; and, once again, Barry Kelley (as Earl Mahoney) turns up as one of the heavies that Lin Vanner must face in order to solve the puzzle and salve his conscience. And, in a surprise turnout, there's Victor Jory (one of Hollywood's long-time great character actors) as the sympathetic priest (Father Gomez) and sounding board for Lin Vanner's recounting of his miseries. I'd seen Victor Jory, in other movies, mostly as a bandit, an Indian, a hard-nosed Mexican cattleman, a cop and such like, so the role of priest was definitely different for him, but a role that he (under) played with consummate skill.

For movie buffs and Sturges fans, I'd recommend this movie. If you're bored and you want to while away ninety minutes or so, you could do much worse.

Wounded fugitive Lew Ayres (as Lin Vanner) finds refuge in the company of convenient priest Victor Jory (as Father Gomez); in the latter's home, he relates, via flashback storytelling, his unfortunate story. Mainly, Mr. Ayres' tale concerns his stay as ranch hand for new widow Teresa Wright (as Ellen Tevlin) and her son, Jimmy Hunt (as Mike). Despite revealing he was responsible for her husband's death (after a payroll heist) Ayres wins Ms. Wright's hand in marriage.

Most enjoyable during Ayres' sleuthing, after he weds Wright; during this time, there is a neatly directed John Sturges hanging. Still, this is a more unsatisfying than not film; it doesn't ever find a balance between psychological swerving talk, and occasional action. "Cisco Kid" Duncan Renaldo (as Carlos) can be spotted among the supporting players.

This is an interesting drama that features a good leading performance by Lew Ayres and a story that combines action and a little psychology. The pace is uneven, particularly in the middle of the movie, and this keeps it from being better. But both the early sequences and the climactic chain of events work pretty well.

Ayres plays a former oil man who once captured a suspected criminal, and then felt responsible when the man died in custody. He starts to get involved with the dead man's widow, even as he is haunted by uncertainty over whether he had done the right thing. It sets up a number of possibilities, and it is given an added air of fateful inevitability by the technique of having Ayres's character tell most of the story, in flashback style, to a priest.

After a solid start, things bog down for a while in the middle, although Ayres and Teresa Wright do their best to keep it watchable. Eventually, though, it gets back on track, and the last few scenes tie things together and bring the story to a tense conclusion.

The Capture is a neat little modern western where Lew Ayres in the space of the 90 minute running time learns what it's like to be the hunter and the hunted. The film was written and produced by Niven Busch, screenwriter and husband of co-star Teresa Wright.

A tired, bedraggled, Lew Ayres staggers into the mission of Padre Victor Jory and tells him he's hunting by the police in Mexico where this story takes place. He explains to Jory just how this happened.

A year earlier Ayres was the foreman in a Mexican oilfield with mixed Yankee and native crew and his payroll is robbed. Ayres deduces that the posse organized is doing it wrong and he decides to become an unofficial peacemaker and bring in the bandit himself. And he finds such a suspect where he thinks he should be in the person of Edwin Rand. Rand is wounded in The Capture, but later dies after police interrogation.

Ayres quits Bolsa Grande Oil and breaks off his engagement to Jacqueline White. Circumstances bring him to the small ranch of Rand's widow Teresa Wright and their boy Jimmy Hunt.

I won't say any more other than the plot takes a turn from the Graham Greene novel and film, This Gun For Hire. As for the personal relations between Ayres and Wright, the plot elements from the future John Wayne classic Hondo are used.

The film was shot on location and was an independent production released by RKO Pictures. Ayres, Wright, and the rest of the cast give good accounts of themselves. And the ending is rather unusual for 1950 in that you really don't know what everyone's fate will be in the end as the film ends somewhat abruptly. Abrupt, but still effective.

As a big fan of Miss Wright ,the great character actress of Wyler's ,Walsh's or Hitchcock's classics , I was looking forward to watching this movie ;but as far as she's concerned ,I was disappointed :her part is underwritten , her screen presence is about half of Lew Ayres's ; her character is cardboard ,cast in the widowed-woman-with-child mold and predictable to a fault (although her evolution is preposterous: first she treats Ayres as a slave , then overnight she falls into his arms)

On the other hand ,the male part is much more interesting : a man consumed with remorse ,who tries to find the truth and makes another faux pas ; a man who does not know where he stands anymore who confesses to a priest : the movie is a long flashback ,and can be considered ,from that point of view ,as a moderately successful film.

Disappointing western-tinged noir (or noir-tinged western) from John Sturges about a man driven by guilt over killing a robbery suspect. The movie plods and plods, especially during the tedious second act, and doesn't pick up until the end. I would say Lew Ayres that seems wrong for the role, but it's hard to pin down what the role is. Noir is often about making the wrong choices, but this guy just seems to make one bone-headed or misguided decision after another. Teresa Wright's character is equally puzzling. The whole thing just doesn't work. Some potentially interesting psychological angles arise, but they're handled poorly. The score is also a dud and the cinematography isn't that special either. A few good moments aside, nothing much to see here.

I purchased this as part of a 50 Movie pack of DVD's called Action Classics. While that is not the genre I'd call it, The Capture is well worth the time.

The first part of the movie deals with a US oilfield worker in 1935 Mexico. He hunts down and kills a payroll robber. The film then settles into the main part of the story. It is an introspective, psychological analysis of the consequences for himself, and those who remember the dead man. Its all about a search for meaning and truth.

The Capture left me with the feeling I used to get, watching the the short stories that were the staple of anthology drama series of the 1950's -- Twilight Zone, or Zane Grey Theatre -- but of course, this feature film has better production values than a TV series. I loved the innocent thoughtful stories that don't seem to be made any more, and The Capture is a fine example them.

Lew Ayres shines in this role seemingly made for him, and him only. Very smooth character for whom the audiences could feel empathy, because he represents the normal human being, very human, maybe the result of his Dr Kildare performances.... Man in search for forgiveness, redemption is nearly a cliché, especially with a priest in the scheme, and I don't particularely like that at all, but this movie remains worth, because there is a suspense for the audiences, knowing that Ayres' character is hired by the widow of the man he killed. And the woman of course ignores it, so the audience wonders how, or when will she discover it , and what will be her reaction then? That's for me the main interest of this film. A rare and unknown John Sturges' early material, but there are more, made in the late forties and early fifties: JEOPARDY, MYSTERY STREET, and especially THE MAN WHO DARED, that announced Fritz Lang's BEYOND A REASONABLE DOUBT.

Note the lengthy action hook at the beginning. But once Vanner (Ayers) links up with Ellen (Wright)-- wife of the man Vanner killed under cloudy circumstances-- the movie bogs down into character study, before an action-laden climax. It's an interesting if uneven film using rocky LA area locations to unsettling effect.

So is the man Vanner's killed in a shoot-out, really a payroll robber or not. Racked by uncertainty, Vanner travels incognito to the widow's farm to work there and, in the process, find out more about her dead husband. But will she find out who he really is and what he's done. The premise here is a compelling one. Too bad it soon bogs down.

I suspect the family oriented middle part was aimed at giving Ayers and Wright a chance to again show their acting chops. Which they do, but detrimentally to the pacing. The script also contains several creative ironies, particularly the wounded arm that helps Vanner expiate his guilt feelings. Looks like Victor Jory's unexpectedly brief appearance was a marquee helping payday. Anyway, no film with the rotund Barry Kelley can afford to be passed up. All in all, it's an interesting, if flawed, black-and-whiter, with an unusual final frame. Too bad the effective elements are not more tightly combined.

Injured "Vanner" (Lew Ayres) arrives in a barn where he meets a priest. The holy man (Victory Jory) suggests he might be more comfortable in the house and upon arrival, listens to his rather complicated story. He used to work in the oilfields of Mexico when he apprehended a man he believed was implicated in a payroll robbery. The man was duly taken into custody but perished shortly thereafter. Though not responsible, "Vanner" is troubled. His engagement goes the way of the dodo and he quits his job, setting off for the small-holding home of the man's widow. Ostensibly just a homeless factotum, he meets "Ellen" (Teresa Wright) and her young son "Mike" (Jimmy Hunt) just as they have advertised for someone to help get their 300-odd head of cattle to market. Briefly, what now ensues is a sort of reversal of the "Shane" story, with she the distant and aloof character - a scenario that is only worsened when she declares that she knows who he is and forgiveness is far from her mind. Perhaps the solution is for them to work together as maybe just maybe, he got it wrong in the first place? This is actually quite a decent little thriller until the last fifteen minutes, which really don't make a great deal of sense at all and appear designed to maximise the dramatic conclusion rather than have the story add up. The acting and writing are all adequate and John Sturges keeps it moving along well enough - it's just that underwhelming denouement that really does let it down.

Lew ayres, teresa wright, in a low budget rko film. Vanner shows up on a priest's doorstep, badly injured. The priest takes him in and listens to his story. Flash back to .... vanner bringing in tevlin, who may have or have not robbed the payroll. But vanner thinks something isn't right about the arrest and the interrogation. So he resigns. And ends up working for the suspect's wife. The picture quality is a bit lacking... sometimes it's hard to see just what's going on. It's all okay. Ayres and wright were both pretty big stars, but ayres' personal beliefs slowed down his film career. Check out his story in imdb dot com or wikipedia. Directed by john sturges. He was nominated for black rock! Sturges also directed magnificent seven, which was also nominated for an oscar. Some of the scenes for "capture" were filmed at pioneertown, in joshua tree, california. Note the joshua trees in the background. Story based on the novel by niven busch. He was nominated for old chicago.

Lew Ayres is an executive at a production facility in Mexico. When a payroll is robbed, he figures out where any thief would make a break for, and heads off to find Edwin Rand. Rand doesn't raise his hands, so Ayres fires. Rand says one arm is busted, and he didn't steal the money. Although the wound appears minor, Rand bleeds out and dies.

Ayres gets on the train at random and winds up in a small Mexican tank town, where he spots Teresa Wright. He goes to work for her on her run-down ranch. She discovers he was the man who killed Rand, her husband, and she torments him, so soon they are married. Then comes the time when Ayres decides that Rand didn't commit the robbery and goes in search of the actual robber.

The movie is buoyed up by the two leads and some fine direction by John Sturges, but the way Ayres' character is written, alternately brilliant and stupid, is infuriatingly inconsistent, shifting one way or t'other to suit the dictates of the plot. Checking over the reviews in the IMDb, I saw it praised as a "psychological western" and a "film noir western" and "thoughtful storytelling." What I saw was the worst sort of storytelling, in which usually reliable screenwwriter and producer Niven Bush decided he needed Ayres to do one thing in one scene, so he did, and something else in another scene, so he did. It's a story in which plot drives character instead of the other way around, and the actors are mostly good enough, and likable enough to make you accept it. Characters need to be consistent to be believable, and Ayres' character is not.

And how did Miss Wright shift from hating Ayres as the man who killed her husband to loving him enough to marry him? I still don't get that.

I got this film from the Dark Crimes 50-pack collection: It is not what I would call a "Dark Crime" film... this is a western. If this film is a "dark crime" then so are all other westerns.

The film is just okay. Nothing special to see here. It's told in flashback from our oil man cowboy to the priest. It's about a guy that runs an oil field, someone took some money that they were suppose to pay the workers with and one man is blamed for doing it. So our oil man who dubs as a cowboy goes after the guy, shoots the guy to quickly and the guy slowly bleeds to death internally. Next our oil cowboy sees a woman, falls for her the moment he sees her, finds out it's the dead man's wife and he goes after her. She is running a ranch and runs an ad in the paper for help since her husband is dead - and she hires the oil man cowboy to help her. Long story short, they marry - then he is on the run again for the murder of her dead husband, blah blah blah, more stuff happens and he ends up with a priest and the law after him and ends up a in a shoot out at the priest's place.

Really not a all that bad of a film but it's not all that great either.

3/10

John Sturges was a good and well-known director of westerns. The Capture is one of his lesser films, but is enhanced by the presence of Lew Ayres and Teresa Wright.

The movie starts with an injured Lin Vanner (Ayres) getting some help from a priest (Victor Jory) and telling his story. While looking for a man involved in a payroll robbery, he kills someone he believed was the criminal. The man was injured and unable to hold his arm up to surrender, and then doubt is cast on whether or not he stole the money.

Lin locates the man's wife (Wright) and, as she doesn't know who he is, he takes a job helping her on her farm. He becomes very fond of her and her young son. However, she goes through his things and learns his identity. After a confrontation, she admits it was a bad marriage and he was away most of the time. The two fall in love and marry. Lin then leaves to find out who really stole the payroll and clear her late husband's name.

This was a cut above most of the movies on this large collection I have of public domain noirs and mysteries.

The Capture tries mightily but in the end it suffers from a meandering script which is too full of plot devices and contrivances. The result is shocking as it was directed by the great John Sturges, who directed some of the best action pictures ever made, including "The Magnificent Seven". It is a picaresque type of a story which might be called " the Adventures of a Guilt-Ridden Oilman". Lew Ayres in the lead role bounces from place to place, falling in love with the wife of a man he has killed while searching for the real payroll thief. As he is on the lam in the midst of his guilt trip, he is eventually discovered and must hit the road again. Eventually he ends up in the same straits as the man he has killed, even incurring an identical injury as the dead man.....

Sorry. I dozed off trying to recount the drab, preposterous proceedings. At best, it is a curiosity which is about 20 minutes too long and stretches the credulity of the viewer to the breaking point. Lew Ayres was good and Teresa Wright was excellent, but even so a question arises; Did they do drugs while writing scripts in the 40's?

This film could have been much better. It's fatal flaw was in the way the story was revealed through extended flashback. This device defeats the purpose of creating suspense in real time. We KNOW the antagonist will survive to meet the priest (a great job of casting eternal bad guy, Victor Jory, as a priest). This kills all the possibility of other outcomes. The fim is a bit talky and is short on action as well. It tries to be a great saga instead of a simple story, and that is the final nail in the coffin for this film. Lew Ayres and Teresa Wright try to save it, but it DOA.

John Sturges was one of the most reliable directors of Hollywood, consistently making greater and better films and in later years trusted with very advanced and complicated film projects, which he managed quite well like everything else. This is a minor noir but still reaching some monumental stature in its very interesting story of destiny and the chase of it while it ends up chasing you. Lew Ayres is always worth watching closely on the screen, he always accepted very interesting roles, and here he is pursuing a robber from his oil company and manages to hunt him down - to get him killed by mistake. He leaves a widow with a son, and Lew Ayres wants desperately to atone for his mistake and takes a job at her ranch as a an odd worker. She gradually understands his hand in her husband's death, while at the same time that marriage is proved not to have been too happy - so Teresa Wright marries Lew Ayres, and they are both happy for it, but that's where the real problem starts. Because Lew Ayres can't get it out of his mind that her previous husband was shot to death and blamed for the theft although he was innocent, and so the new husband sets his mind on finding the real villain in the mess. The composition of the film is perfect, relying mainly on long flashbacks, greadually revealing a fascinating intricacy of a sordid matter, the photo and cinematography is also great, but above all you will enjoy the wonderful environments of wildest Mexico and Daniele Amfitheatrof's gorgeous music all through, with even some Mexican songs on the way. To me, it was a thoroughly enjoyable and most interesting film, and although there have been objections against the ending, I felt the opposite about it, just like an old classical deus ex machina turn of unexpected and quite natural character. In brief, I loved it, as I so far always greatly enjoyed all of John Sturges' films.