The worst film of Tourneur, one of the worst performances of Andrews, Hayward, Donlevy & Bond. If you want to lose your time, this is trouble for you. It's a ridiculous story, extremely long movie going. Further proof that great directors and artists do not do miracles. Anyway, if you are having trouble vomiting or defecating, watch this garbage.

You can see the date of my review above. I was always a big western fan but somehow this one escaped me all these years. Maybe I was always looking for a well-known Western star like James Stewart or John Wayne, but Dana Andrews? He made a couple but they were mostly forgettable and besides, he was a 'B' list actor anyway.'Canyon Passage" was excellent in all respects, especially the multi-layered plot which is not typical of the western genre. They are often 2-dimensional affairs; good guys and bad guys, good guy rides in and saves whatever needs saving. Or rescues the wagon train from Indians. Or outwits the corrupt sheriff. And so on.After all the above reviews, it's all been said, so I won't. I just want to say I recommend this picture and I can't think of a valid criticism or a flaw to report. Photography was gorgeous, acting was solid and director Jacques Tourneur always turns in a first class job ("Cat People" (42), "Out Of The Past" (47),etc). Movies like this make sitting in a darkened theater worthwhile and rewarding, or in front of a TV if you missed it the first time.

Recently I came across a disc of westerns I had where Susan Hayward was the star. She didn't make too many films in this genre, but the ones she did appear in were very sharply filmed. One such early picture was Universal's CANYON PASSAGE, produced by Walter Wanger with whom Hayward was under contract at the time.The story goes that several directors were suggested before European-born director Jacques Tourneur was selected. Tourneur began directing shorts back in his native France in the early 30s, and by the time 1946 rolled around, he had already been in Hollywood for several years. He built a name for himself in the industry directing low-budget horror films for Val Lewton at RKO earlier in the decade, and CANYON PASSAGE would be his first western. More significantly, it would be his first motion picture photographed in Technicolor.During his apprenticeship at RKO, Tourneur learned the importance of morally ambiguous story lines that kept audiences guessing about the fate of a story's main characters. The chance to explore these approaches in Technicolor was probably too good to pass up. He would also have a larger budget at Universal.True to form, Tourneur did not disappoint. He made the most of a frontier tale filmed with exciting outdoor scenes on location in Oregon. He used the impressive lush backdrops of the forests, meadows and mountain ranges off in the distance, juxtaposed with shadowy figures, lurking within the landscape, waiting to ambush others with shocking violence at a moment's notice.In a way the use of vivid Technicolor lulls the audience into accepting the bucolic countryside as something pleasant, beautiful and peaceful. But there is a darker undercurrent in the settling of the west, and its real nature becomes apparent with the use of shadows and with morally ambiguous characterizations that choose not to paint things too stereotypically for the viewer.Indeed, there are no traditional white hats (for the heroes) or black hats (for the villains). Instead, we get group shots, where all the men and women, of varying shades of goodness and corruption, populate the landscape side by side. The final result is a rather complex drama about the community's survival existing across a landscape where men and women make mistakes and are not fully good or bad.It might be said that Tourneur's approach in the western genre paved the way for other morally ambiguous stories to follow. Notably, efforts by Anthony Mann and Raoul Walsh.

The 1940s were a time of transition in the Hollywood movie. This was the age of the film noir, and often those darker, more pessimistic forces were starting to creep into the most unlikely of genre flicks. This being a relatively new phenomenon, often not everyone in the production was on the same wavelength and you could get some odd mismatches of tone. Canyon Passage opens with a town drenched in rain, a sorry-looking figure on horseback weaving his way amid the houses; very different to the usual triumphant ride in from the plains that would kick off your average Western. And yet, this opening is accompanied by very typical, upbeat Western music. Plot-wise, post-production-wise, this is a run-of-the-mill mid-budget horse opera. The only difference is the way it looks.A lot of this is probably down to director Jacques Tourneur. Canyon Passage was one his first features after leaving Val Lewton's horror-orientated B-unit at RKO, and the clinging darkness of the pictures he made there has stayed with him. Lots of directors have habitually used claustrophobic shot compositions, but the form of Tourneur's are eye-catchingly unique, often putting actors up against the edge of the frame or placing very large objects right before the camera. He often fills the foreground but rarely uses actual close-ups. This can have some unusual effects. When Dana Andrews introduces Susan Hayward and Patricia Roc to each other, Andrews is foreground, centre-screen, his back to the camera, with the two ladies framed either side of him. This very odd-looking set-up sticks out, immediately establishing in the mind of the viewer that there will be some kind of rivalry between the women, doing so with greater impact than a more typical shot would provide. This is perhaps Tourneur's greatest asset – being able to give a very stylised look to the whole picture but still making the key individual moments stand out. This is, I guess, very much a cornerstone of good horror direction as well.And despite the focus on cramped interiors and dismal towns, Canyon Passage does not neglect that outdoors that is quintessential to the Western genre. Whilst we don't see much of the open plains, this is in fact one of the most beautiful depictions of the mountains and pine forests of the West. Normally the baroque stylings of a director such as Tourneur don't really suit the Western, but the screenplay of Canyon Passage is so bland, its cast so unremarkable (the only standouts being the coolly dramatic Hayward, the loveably dismal Hoagy Carmichael and the sheer oddity of seeing Ward Bond play a villain) that this is one way of making it worth watching. This could never really have been a masterpiece, but its fresh and engaging appearance raises it above the average.