Shane (1953)
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Directed by: George Stevens
Starring: Alan Ladd, Jean Arthur, Van Heflin, Jack Palance, Brandon de Wilde
Shane ranked # 69 on the American Film Institute's Top 100 American Films list.
Shane (1953) is a western film. It tells the story of a gunfighter who comes to a recently settled farm area near a quiet town and fights for the rights of homesteaders against the long-entrenched hard-bitten open-range cattlemen who control the majority of the land.
The film is based on a 1949 novel of the same name by Jack Schaefer. Although it is fiction, elements of the setting are derived from Wyoming's Johnson County War. The physical setting is the high plains near Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and many shots feature the Grand Teton massif looming in the near distance.
Shane was the first flat widescreen (soft matted 1.66:1) color western film to be produced. (It was actually shot for 1.37:1 Academy ratio, but the studio dictated that it be cropped in the movie projector to compete with the to-be-released CinemaScope format.) The music was stereophonic.
Shane was one of the first films to attempt to recreate the overwhelming sound of gunfire. Warren Beatty cited this aspect of Shane as inspiration during the filming Bonnie and Clyde (from the documentary "George Stevens: A Filmmaker's Journey").
Top 100 Greatest Films - AFI 100 - DVDs
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