The Law and Jake Wade

Another movie that I DVRed some time back and only recently got around to watching is The Law and Jake Wade, another of those movies that got a Blu-ray release courtesy of the Warner Archive Collection.

Jake Wade (Robert Taylor) is a man with a past. He's the marshal in a town called Cold Stream, but he had served in the Confederate army in the Civil War. After that, he was in a gang with Clint Hollister (Richard Widmark). One robbery went wrong and Clint saved Jake from getting killed, but at the cost of Clint's getting captured and sentenced to hang. Jake repays the debt by breaking Clint out of jail.

Interestingly, Jake's past isn't going to require him to pay for it the way most Code-era movies would require. But to get to that point isn't going to be easy. Jake tried to go straight by taking the marshal's job, and now even has a fiancée Peggy (Patricia Owens), with whom he's willing to start a new life elsewhere after they get married. Of course, part of the reason for wanting to start a new life is to get away from Clint, which is a good idea.

You know that's not going to happen, however. Clint shows up with his gang, including Wexler (DeForest Kelley) and Ortero (Robert Middleton). In that botched robbery that resulted in Clint's imprisonment, the gang had taken $20,000. But it was Jake who was supposed to be the guardian of the money. He decided to bury it and become a marshal. Clint obviously didn't go straight, and equally obviously, he wants that $20,000.

So Clint takes Jake and Peggy hostage, forcing Jake under the threat of death to both of them to take Clint to the money. That money is buried in a ghost town, and as you can guess, the Indians are also following Clint and the rest of them, leading to the possibility that nobody's going to get the money.

The Law and Jake Wade was one of Robert Taylor's final movies at MGM after a long time under contract. He's getting old here, and although he does OK, he's never been one of my favorites as he's always a bit stiff. Widmark seems as though he's growing a bit tired of having to play the bad guy yet again, although he's as professional as ever.

The story is OK, as is the cinematography and the supporting acting. Overall, The Law and Jake Wade is another movie that does everything solidly enough, but doesn't break any new ground. If you like westerns, I think you'll definitely be entertained by this, but if you're not the biggest fan or trying to introduce somebody to old westerns, I'd start elsewhere, not that there's anything particularly wrong with the movie.