One of Stewart's best ...


The Man from Laramie should be a must view for any students of the western genre cinema. Stewart embraces every role he plays with tremendous style an energy and the Man from Laramie is no exception. Will Lockhart (Stewart) is not a man to be threatened, pushed into a corner and don't tell him what he can and can't do. With that said Lockhart has a very unpleasant encounter with Dave Waggoman (Alex Nicol) the son of cattle baron Alec Waggoman (Donald Crisp). The son has a very sadistic side when it comes to keeping trespassers of his father's land. In the first half of the movie, there is the scene where young Waggoman spots Lockhart's small caravan, a few miles outside the town of Coronado, New Mexico(the Waggoman land included the town of Coronado), and decides to burn his wagons and kill some of the mules. This encounter infuriates Lockhart who returns to Coronado to get some payback for what Waggoman did. Eventually Lockhart meets up with Mr. Waggoman and gets some restitution for his destroyed wagons and mules.
Once restitution is made the movie begins to pick up some speed. We soon discover that Lockhart has another reason for being in Coronado and that involves Apaches, rifles and a massacre occuring on Waggoman's land.
Before the advent of the spaghetti westerns and the no name style of cowboy offered by Lee Van Cleef and Clint Eastwood, there was James Stewart and many others who gave us memorable roles such as the Man from Laramie.

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I'm just watching it now for the first time - Jimmy is wonderful as always. Have you seen Winchester 73? Another Stewart western and another I really enjoyed.

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I by far preferred Winchester 73 to The Man From Laramie.

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The Man from Laramie would be my favorite Stewart/Mann western after 'Winchester' and 'Naked Spur.'

"I know you're in there, Fagerstrom!"-Conan O'Brien

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I disliked Winchester'73, but I enjoyed The Man from Laramie. Still, Stewart's best performence was in Hitchcock's Vertigo.

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you are RIGHT ON - Vertigo was Stewart's best performance, then Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.. Naked Spur is his and Mann's best western!

My only regret in life is that I'm not someone else - Woody Allen

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'The Man from Laramie' is by far the best Mann/Stewart teamup.

'Winchester 73' and 'Naked Spur' are a distant second and third..........IMHO.

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I agree that The Man from Laramie is the best Mann/Stewart film.

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The best Mann/Stewart film? Wow. Stewart I just don't get the hype. He seems like a nice guy I guess.

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There were/are motion pictures similar to this one.then sadly,we have the "filth" that has helped to corrode the morality of what was once America.

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For me it's his best movie, and his second best performance following what I consider one of the best from him or any actor, ANATOMY OF A MURDER. I cannot stop watching this one, Laramie that is. Just can't stop. It's perfect. My fav movie ever. Funny too because a few years back I thought Stewart was a bit of a time piece from the past, and a good actor but something about him bugged me. His voice, I don't know. Now, though, he's in two of my fav top ten all-time best list and hell, I even bought and in a week watched the entire JIMMY STEWART SHOW sitcom just to see him reunited with the (proverbially speaking of Stewart and Arthur Kennedy) ingenue from BEND OF THE RIVER (both O'Donnell and Julie Adams girlfriends of Kennedy but really like Stewart). Anyhow... I agree with your post. Glad there are lovers of this movie on here. What I find when I go on just about any Pre-Nolan or Depp movies is people writing: I FOUND ANOTHER MISTAKE or OVERRATED, etc.

My Cinema Site at www.cultfilmfreaks.com

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