The Hanged Man
(1974)
Director: Michael Caffey
Cast: Steve Forrest, Dean Jagger, Will Geer
Every year, a
number of new television shows start up on America's five main
television networks. And every year, most of these new shows are
cancelled after just one season - sometimes even less than one season.
The idea is that you throw a bunch of noodles on a wall, and while most
of them will fall to the floor, some of them will stay stuck to the
wall. It does in some ways seem like a thoughtless practice to those
who
have worked so hard on making the shows. The makers of these shows have
to work hard right from the very beginning. First, they have to get an
idea for a new show. It's not enough to have a good idea once you've
got it, but you have to present it to the networks in the right way.
Sometimes, however, the ideas and their presentation are so bad that
the proposed show is doomed right from the start. Once when I was
reading a book about the worst television shows of all time, I came
across the following story, a supposedly true story about a writer's
pitch to one of the major American TV networks. An aspiring
writer had managed to get a one-on-one meeting with one of the
television network's executives. The writer said the following: "You'll
love it! It's all about a horse that can talk, but only his owner can
hear him, and they get into all sorts of adventures..." The network
executive cut off the writer at this point, and politely told him, "But
there was already a show like that. It was called Mr. Ed."
This did not shake up the writer at all. The writer then explained to
the network executive, "No, this is completely different. The horse
only speaks Italian."
But let's say you are a writer or a producer with more
sanity, and you manage to pique the interest of the network executives.
You haven't won yet. Now the network will ask you to come up with a
pilot script for your television show idea. As you probably know, you
usually can't write the pilot script as a typical episode of the show
you have dreamed up. You have to set up the situation and the
characters, so audiences who watch it will know what to expect from the
show (if it's green-lighted) in the weeks to come. Not only that, you
have to write in a way that will engage the network executives. But
let's say you manage to come up with a pilot script that the network
executives like. Now it comes time to actually filming this pilot
script. You can't just jump straight away into filming it. You first
have to cast the actors who are going to play the characters in your
proposed TV series. You might have a certain actor in mind, but the TV
network nixes your idea and tells you to cast someone else. (The
producers of The Brady Bunch
wanted to cast the then-unknown Gene Hackman as Mike Brady, but the
network told them to cast someone more well-known.) Anyway, let's say
you manage to successfully make your pilot. Now the network will watch
it - along with a number of other pilots - and then decide if your
pilot
stands out enough from the bulk of the submissions. (I read from one
source during my research for this review that only
a quarter of TV pilots made are actually made into TV series.) But
let's say
they like your pilot and they have green-lighted your series. You might
be able to make your series, but you will be dependent on the network
to give your show a good time slot, plus enough publicity so that
potential viewers will know about your show. And even if all that
happens, there's still a chance that despite all your work and the
network's work, nobody will tune into your show.
As you can see, the work to get a TV series - any TV
series - on the air is a lot of hard work. So you may understand why
producers have numerously tried certain schemes to make the job
somewhat easier. One scheme is called "the spin-off". Using an
established and successful TV series, the producers can devote
one
episode focusing on certain characters of the show - or entirely new
characters - and show the episode to the network executives as a
proposed pilot. Another method that was popular in the '70s and '80s
was called "backdoor pilots". Pilots for proposed series were filmed as
standalone movies, so if these movie pilots weren't subsequently made
into series by the networks, they
could still be broadcast as a movie-of-the-week. (This time period was
the golden age of the made-for-TV movie, remember.) The Hanged Man
is one such example of a backdoor pilot, though whether it was rejected
as a possible series before or after its broadcast, I am not sure. The
movie takes place in the American west in the year 1878, centering
around the character of gunfighter James Devlin (Forrest, S.W.A.T.)
At the beginning of the movie, he is in prison for murder, and is
waiting for his execution date. Resigned to his fate, Devlin offers no
resistance on his way to the gallows, and is subsequently hanged. A
death certificate is issued, and it seems that Devlin's is headed to
the graveyard. But then his "corpse" comes back to life. The law and
Devlin's friends reason that since Devlin's sentence was carried out
and a death certificate was issued, Devlin is legally dead, and he can
go free. Bewildered about his luck, a confused Devlin starts wandering
the desert, unsure of what to do next. But soon he stumbles onto a
pretty widow (played by Sharon Acker) and her young son, living on a
mining property that evil land baron Lew Halleck (played by Cameron
Mitchell) wants for his own, and will do anything to get it.
Although that is a fairly small plot description, I am
confident I know what you are thinking after reading it. You are
thinking, "Gee, that sounds very familiar. The whole 'surviving the
execution' plotline has been done before in countless books, comics,
and movies. As well, the plot about a gunfighter encountering a widow
with a young son, both being harassed by a greedy and ruthless land
baron, has been used endlessly in western fiction." I certainly won't
deny that you are right about those two things - they were certainly
old hat even when this movie was made in 1974. So you are probably
wondering why the makers of The Hanged Man
did the same old thing again. Well, there's something that I left out
in that plot description that gives the movie a twist. You see,
according to some viewers who've watched this movie (and what I read
from elsewhere that got me to pick up the movie in the first place),
the
character of
James Devlin has supernatural powers!
Indeed, in one part of the movie, he seems to sense something just
before the widow's water tower is dynamited. And later in the movie, he
manages to get into Halleck's bathroom unseen so he can terrify the
surprised Halleck. (Though at the end of the scene, Devlin uses the
door to leave.) Curiously, the supernatural abilities of
Devlin come up once before he
is hanged, when he somehow knows what a visiting priest is thinking.
Actually, despite those three incidents, as well as all those sources I
consulted for information about the movie before writing this review
back up the claim that the Devlin character has supernatural powers,
I'm unable to confirm these claims. The presentations of these supposed
powers are done in a way that they could be explained easily by
rational thinking. Maybe Devlin heard something before the dynamite
explosion. Maybe he did sneak in the bathroom in a normal fashion. And
maybe he just guessed the priest's thoughts.
Because of all this doubt, I can't say for sure whether
it was intended for Devlin to have supernatural powers. So I'll have to
assume that it wasn't intended, and focus on the rest of this pilot.
The pilot suggests that each week, Devlin would wander into a new
location and help the people there with whatever problem they would be
experiencing before hitting the trail again at the end of the episode.
Again, not a very original plot device, either for westerns or other
kind of dramas. I guess it still could have worked, but the pilot as a
whole is very unconvincing in persuading you that it could have been
pulled of by this pilot's creators. For starters, take the character of
Devlin. Being given a second chance of life is an intriguing prospect.
It would no doubt lead you to rethink your life and struggle to make
changes in your behavior. But this doesn't really happen in this case.
Before his hanging, Devlin has the sympathy of many characters (his
lawyer, the town sheriff) and is portrayed as a nice guy who was
accused of something he didn't do. Yet after he's hanged, he is more or
less the same man as he was before. Think of how interesting it could
have been if he was an evil man before the hanging, then afterwards
struck with this second chance. He would almost certainly rethink of
what he did, maybe struggle with guilt, and as he travels he has to
prove again and again in different ways that he's not living up to his
bad reputation anymore. But as it's presented here, we get no
motivations, no in-depth looks into Devlin's mind. He seems passively
content, and that's boring. In fact, when you think about it, the
hanging seems absolutely unnecessary; the first thirty minutes of the
movie, dealing with his hanging and resurrection could be completely
eliminated without having to tinker much with the rest of the script.
Steve Forrest is a talented actor, but the dialogue and
direction he is given here make it impossible for him to make an
impression and interest the audience enough to want him to prevail. The
scenes he has with the widow character make no sparks fly, romantic or
otherwise. Most of the other characters in the movie are equally as
boring or as very familiar as the various plot threads, though Cameron
Mitchell does add a little life to his scenes when he puts some of his
trademark hammy acting style into his cigar-chewing villain character.
But Mitchell doesn't get much of a chance to stir things up because
even though he is the villain, he isn't in that many scenes in the
movie. As a result, we never really get to have a feeling of hatred or
even mere dislike for this bad guy. Near the very end, when Devlin
confronts Mitchell's character for the final time, we are not pumped up
and eagerly waiting to see Mitchell pumped with holes - we are just
watching, and not have any emotional investment in what we are seeing.
The whole movie feels like the writer and the director had no love or
personal interest
in the project, and just felt like cranking out a product with the
minimum amount of energy needed, instead of coming up with a real story
with
multi-dimensional characters. I suppose that on a technical viewpoint,
the movie is competently done. The photography and lighting is
professional, and the various sets and props look authentic. The
outdoor locations are also pleasant to the eye. But the fact that the
viewer will be more interested in this material than the on-screen
drama just further illustrates that this pilot not only has nothing new
in the story it give its audience, but is presented in a way that has
no new perspective. This television pilot is simply on autopilot.
Check
for availability on Amazon (Amazon Prime Video)
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Check
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See also: Earthbound, Evil Roy Slade, Will
Penny
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