Movie review: 'Four Faces West'

Lisa Maue
Guest contributor
“Four Faces West“ (1948), starring Joel McCrea and Frances Dee, filmed in El Morro, White Sands and Gallup.

Filmed during the heyday of Westerns, “Four Faces West” was an anomaly compared to similar films where good guys and bad guys were instantly recognizable by the color of their hats. Not a single shot was fired in this film; there isn’t even a fist fight.

Based on the short novel “Pasó Por Aqui” by Eugene Manlove Rhodes, the connection to New Mexico and Lincoln County, in particular, are deep and wide-ranging. Rhodes’ father was the Indian agent for the Mescalero Apache Reservation and Rhodes himself taught school in Alto.

The Lincoln County Historical Society and other groups often host yearly tours of Rhodes’ grave site and ranch located near Engle, New Mexico.

Rhodes’ experience as a working cowboy underscores his works, made more poignant since he was to write many of his works while in exile in New York. A scene where the protagonist rides a bull like a horse and treats a family stricken with diphtheria are semi-autobiographical but he is perhaps best appreciated for his adherence to a code of the west that singles out the citizen of the frontier; one that city dwellers may not understand. Rhodes’ character, Ross McEwen, is willing to accept formal codes of the law, but he is equally able to sacrifice himself for a friend, woman or principle.

Joel McCrea plays McEwen and his real-life wife, Frances Dee, plays Fay Hollister, a nurse on her way to Alamogordo and love interest. McCrea died on their 57th wedding anniversary and a scene in the film where McEwen speaks tenderly to Hollister as he gives her a ring is heartfelt and touching once the story of their relationship is known.

The McCreas were also a real-life fixture in the Hondo Valley, owning a ranch which was eventually sold in 2002.

While not a typical Western, “Four Faces West” offers a way of life that is more sublime and eminently rural New Mexican where characters must often make difficult choices sometimes based on self-interest and sometimes on the basis of a higher, collective good.
