Four Faces West was actually a rare screen appearance for Dee in this period; between 1943 and 1951 she acted in only three films, due to her devotion to her young children. Even after 1951, she made only five more features.
She and McCrea display appealing chemistry here. She plays a nurse who falls in love with McCrea as he is on the run from the law after staging what may be the gentlest bank robbery in western movie history, leaving an IOU for the money he steals--or "borrows," as he sees it. He needs the money to save his father's ranch, but the law, as represented by Sheriff Pat Garrett (Charles Bickford), is constantly on his tail. Four Faces West, in fact, has the distinction of being likely the only western ever made in which not a single shot is fired. It doesn't even contain a brawl. But it's still engaging, suspenseful and underrated thanks to a compelling script, the fine work of its stars, and solid direction by the veteran Alfred E. Green.
Green had about 100 films to his credit dating back to 1916, including such fan favorites as Disraeli (1929), Baby Face (1933) and the recent The Jolson Story (1946). But he had never made a western. McCrea carried director approval on this picture, and his choice was Raoul Walsh. When Walsh proved unavailable, producer Harry Sherman suggested Green. McCrea thought for a moment before reasoning, "Al Green is a sensitive, intelligent fellow. He doesn't need to have made a western. Let him do it," he later recounted to historian Patrick McGilligan. "And he did it. It worked out great."
Four Faces West is based on a story by Eugene Manlove Rhodes first published in the Saturday Evening Post as "Paso Por Aqui," which means "Passed by Here" and refers to an etching on Inscription Rock, a real place in New Mexico that's known today as El Morro National Monument. Rhodes had been a cowboy before becoming a western writer, and he was known for supplying fine authenticity and atmosphere in his tales.
The film shot for two months in New Mexico, including around the 200-foot-high Inscription Rock, before heading to a Hollywood soundstage. According to the official production notes, the crew surveyed 7400 miles of New Mexico "by train, plane, auto and horseback" to find the right locations. The residents of San Rafael allowed their town to be transformed into 1880s Santa Maria by having telephone poles and electric wires removed and living by kerosene lamps for the duration of the shoot.
The crew also got some help from the U.S. Army, which loaned a dozen tractors and trailers to haul 225,000 pounds of equipment into a remote canyon near Gallup. And for a sequence that called for heavy cloud cover despite being filmed on a clear blue day, the commanding officer of a nearby ordnance depot agreed to detonate a large store of obsolete ammunition 48 hours ahead of schedule. The man-made clouds saved a full day's shooting.
Local Navajo Indians helped the film team hoist equipment to the tops of cliffs for some shots. The production provided box lunches to the Indian children, among other payments. "As a reward," claimed the notes, "the tribal elders swore in the entire company as honorary braves..., the largest mass induction in 50 years."
Cinematographer Russell Harlan, in the midst of a distinguished career that would garner him six Oscar nominations, concocted a smart technique in one sequence to film Frances Dee on horseback completely surrounded by fire, without resorting to the usual, complicated split-screen process. According to the production notes, he "placed the actress 24 feet away, but at an angle whereby she was caught by a coated mirror, 30 by 30 feet. Image secured by filming the mirror obviated the necessity of shooting the flames, subsequently shooting the actress, then exposing both negatives on each half of a third negative."
This was the last credit for producer Harry "Pop" Sherman, who had recently produced the much more violent western Ramrod (1947) also starring McCrea, and had a long career in the genre that included numerous Hopalong Cassidy pictures. (His daughter Teddi worked on this film as one of the screenwriters and the on-set dialogue director.) Sherman later said of McCrea: "Joel is the greatest natural western star since...Tom Mix and William S. Hart, and he's the first natural horseman I've ever seen. No trick rider, just a guy who knows how to sit on a horse with grace and authority." Sherman's sentiment was shared by many around Hollywood, and McCrea himself often spoke of his love for the genre. Dee later said, "Joel preferred westerns. He always wanted to do them. He'd say, 'If I have to do claptrap, I want to do it on a horse!'" She also said that his favorite horse, Dollar, can be seen in Four Faces West, distinguishable by the dollar sign on his hip. Dee and McCrea lived for decades on their working ranch in Thousand Oaks, Calif., north of Los Angeles, now on the National Register of Historic Places and open to the public for exhibitions and monthly screenings hosted by their grandson, Wyatt McCrea.
Despite good reviews, Four Faces West was perhaps too quiet a western to become a commercial success. Still, it helped McCrea's career and industry standing. He immediately was offered a contract at Warner Brothers for two more westerns: South of St. Louis (1949) and the excellent Colorado Territory (1949).
This film was shot under the title They Passed This Way, but was changed during postproduction to New Mexico, then to Four Faces West, then to Wanted, and finally back to Four Faces West, although They Passed This Way was kept for the British release.
By Jeremy Arnold
SOURCES:
Michael G. Fitzgerald and Boyd Magers, Ladies of the Western
Patrick McGilligan, Interview with Joel McCrea. Focus on Film, June 1978
Robert Nott, Last of the Cowboy Heroes
Tony Thomas, Joel McCrea: Riding the High Country
