The Ox-Bow Incident

APR. 22, 7PM

| 1943 | NR | 1h 15m |

The Ox-Bow Incident is an American Western film directed by William A. Wellman, written by Lamar Trotti, and based on the novel of the same name by Walter Van Tilburg Clark. The film stars Henry Fonda and Dana Andrews, with Harry Morgan, Harry Davenport, Anthony Quinn, and Mary Beth Hughes. The story begins in a small town in Nevada, in 1885, where it is learned that a local rancher has been murdered. The townspeople immediately form a large posse and set out to pursue the murderers. That night, they find three men sleeping with what are presumed to be stolen cattle nearby. The posse interrogate them, and the men claim that they purchased the cattle but received no bill of sale. No one believes them, and the posse decide to hang the men at sunrise. When dissent develops among some members of the group, a vote is taken on whether to hang the trio or take them to town to stand trial, but the majority support a hanging. After the lynching, they return to town, and on the way, they encounter the town’s sheriT, who reveals the rancher is not dead and the men who shot him have been arrested. The Ox-Bow Incident is one of the earliest films to be called a psychological Western, because of its strong themes of morality and the rule of law. It received an Oscar nomination for Best Picture in 1943 but lost to Casablanca. In 1998, the film was selected for preservation in the United States Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.”