Jack Palance on Shane. Jack Wilson

JC: " When you were young you started out, you talked about not doing the heavy roles, when you started out..would you play any kind of role or did you go to any lengths to get any particular kind of part."

JP:" Oh God, I don't know if i would go to any lengths, Acting a long time ago was terribly serious, It meant so much, i strted a s a New York actor, you now , five years, a lot of plays, then i will go to Hollywood and make a lot of money, twenty years go by and you say, well, i haven't made quite enough money, and you forget New York, I remember one of the Things, when we were doing Shane , a lot of people have told me at times some of the marvelous pieces of business in this thing about riding a Horse. I rode into Town on this little Horse, just walked in kind of, that was beautiful."

note: When i first watched Shane and his character made that appearance , i always looked at him as one of the four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, the one representing Death, gliding in like liquid violence or self contained to bring misery to the World. A character if he was born of a mother probably killed her in child birth and went on killing people the whole way through life. one of the most indelible characters ever created for the screen. A character so purely evil that all good was negated. he shot people in the Stomach to watch them crumple up and die slowly.

JP: Jack couldn't ride a Horse so director George Stevens had him walk the Horse in, and it worked perfectly:

JC: " A great dramatic moment."

JP: " oH yes, one of the great dramatic moments. And then i wore a black glove, I get another piece of business, right piece of business.."demonstrates how he kind of played with his hands menacingly in the movie. The hands that bring death.

JC:" Was Elijah Cooke Jr, you shot from the front porch of the saloon, "

JP:" ( Jack Palance is kind of morphing into his character from Shane right in front of our eyes, Jack Wilson the psychopathic gunman who plays with his hands in a self-obsessed way.)
JP:" At that time i would have shot anybody, you know, I was young and bold." looking at his hands, like in the movie," anyway, i worked on the gun for so long i got a big sore on my hand..( morphs back into Jack Palance) and the only way i could draw the gun, is to put on the black glove." smiles.

It must be powerful to play a character like that, a character that kills without feeling, very similar to the character in " No country for old men" because every character like that in movie springs from The Palance interpretation of that cruel dangerous man. And Palnce could morph into so easily if he wanted to intimidate people, or play mind games, his hands empty of any gun, but in his mind the trigger is cocked and the gun is loaded.