Review: The Walking Hills (1949)

John Sturges, known for classics such as The Magnificent Seven (1960) and The Great Escape (1963), started his career with film noir pictures in the 1940s. In 1949, he took to Westerns with The Walking Hills, which borrows its narrative convention of crooks searching for cash from film noir, but plays it against the stunning, sandy backdrop of Death Valley in California. In fact, the film draws many parallels to The Treasure of the Sierra Madre from the previous year, which similarly blended film noir and Western conventions in interesting ways. Both films are about a group of men heading into the Mexican desert to find gold, only for greed to start turning them against each other. But while Huston’s film is a celebrated classic, The Walking Hills is simply a minor variation in a similar key.

The film’s name comes from the magnificent setting, referring to the sand dunes that reshape after each dust storm, as if the dunes themselves had packed up and walked 100 metres in the night. These “walking hills” provide the film with an atmospheric backdrop for its various confrontations. Cinematographer Charles Lawton Jr. plays with shadows against the dunes and loves to frame characters against the silent sentinels of mountains along the horizon, as if the mountains themselves may bear witness to their crimes. But the desert isn’t the film’s only highlight. 

Early scenes in the border town of Mexicali build tension from the get-go, as the various treasure hunters including horse breeder Jim Carey (western star Randolph Scott), cowboy Shep (William Bishop), mysterious drifter Frazee (John Ireland), and guitar player Josh (blues star Josh White), play poker and accidentally stumble across information leading to the supposed whereabouts of gold within the dunes. The paranoid atmosphere of the border town, with federal agents, criminals, and drifters all trying to disappear or blend in, predicts the sweaty atmosphere of the border town in Orson Welles’ noir classic, Touch of Evil (1958).

Once the characters are in the desert, the plot races ahead at an impressive clip. The entire film only lasts 78 minutes, but within that brief runtime, most of which takes place in the restricted setting of the desert, you get tense confrontations, revelations about people’s true identities, a few gunfights, and a visceral dust storm for good measure, all which add to the entertaining dramatics. You also get lovely little interludes where Randolph Scott’s Jim helps his mare give birth to an adorable foal and where Josh White sets himself on a dune under the stars and plays a beautiful melody on the guitar.

There’s not a ton of psychological depth to this sort of B-picture, but you don’t need it, as the fast pace, memorable setting, and small moments of grace do more than enough to make it worth the 78-minute investment. In fact, it’s hard to overstate how refreshing the short runtime is; it keeps the film focused and pleasurable throughout. The Walking Hills is no The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, but it’s not trying for profundity. It’s a B-picture that lives up to its memorable name and stark setting.

7 out of 10

The Walking Hills (1949, USA)

Directed by John Sturges; written by Alan Le May, with additional dialogue by Virginia Roddick, based on a story by Le May; starring Randolph Scott, Ella Raines, William Bishop, Edgar Buchana, Arthur Kennedy, John Ireland, Jerome Courtland, Russell Collins, Josh White.