The symbol has come to Hollywood. But it’s not quite prepared to make an unattended entrance. It comes accompanied by Gary Cooper and Maria Schell and Technicolor and a theme song. Nevertheless, that frontier instrument of justice, the hanging tree, is a good symbol, and not overdone in the unusual new movie of that name.
The Hanging Tree makes a few notable omissions for a Western. It is not set in cattle country. It has no crooked sheriff, no horseback pursuit, no sunset showdown, and no noble savages. On the other hand, it supplies some new dimensions—a crackpot prophet intoning Genesis and brandishing a hickory staff; Sigmund Freud; pacts with the Devil; wild horses and house-burning a la Faulkner; and Maria Schell in a mining town.
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