I have seen this film many times--mostly on AMC, where they cut the films and put commercials in--but I never saw any scene to explain what Stewart did with the (real) hangman whose identity he assumed in order break Dean and his gang out of the Val Verde jail. Any ideas...?
vaya con dios...
'We all dream of being a child again - even the worst of us. Perhaps the worst most of all...'
Yeah, I wondered about this too. Plus the fact that he was so out of commission that he didn’t even show up in town the next day.
Makes you wonder…
I guess, that since the James Stewart character was shown as merciful and where scenes of violence or shooting occur he is not the "shoot to kill" character of his brother, it always seemed IMHO that he overpowered Grimes, tied him up and left him in the shade where he met him.
In my mind I envison a note left in the saddlebags of the hangman's horse (Stewart rides in with two and leaves on just his own horse) saying "You'll find Hangman Grimes in the gully 5 miles West of town" - but I'm kinda a softy that way!
Don't touch that!
Why Not?
It does very bad things...
I agree with you Zipper because it would have been out of character for the Stewart character to murder him. I think he left a note in the mail or somewhere like you said so he would be found later.
The movie never gave any hint as to what actually happened though and I saw the movie when it was first released. Too bad no one asked Stewart about it.
Someone else has mentioned this in the user reviews - if you saw this movie in the 70s on TV or when it was first released, there's a short scene which shows Mace riding off in executioner garb while Grimes is tied up in his underwear.
I guess somewhere along the line this moment got snipped from later releases.
If that scened did indeed exist, I'm glad it got removed because it would have killed the momentum and also given away way too much of Stewart's character too early. As mentioned above, he's not really the trigger-happy kind but we're not supposed to know that (apart from the fact that he's James Stewart who we always tend to think of as a nice guy) or there wouldn't be much suspense.
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Maybe Mace had to practice his technique...just a guess.
shareThat's why I came in here tonight. It's bothered me because I reasoned he killed this man and that nagged at me. Now I must admit I too recall Grimes in his white long johns as a youngster in '68. I guess I'm relieved in a way, but, also question the wisdom in the Stewart character leaving Grimes alive knowing full well his intention to break his brother out. Too mush risk, even more so as Kennedy delays the hanging overnight. But, the production wasn't about to permit Stewart to murder like that.
At least it's settled in my mind now.
I figure he just threatened Grimes and ran him off.
shareI didn't see where Kennedy "delays the hanging overnight."
I thought Kennedy's character mentions it is set for "high noon" the next day so it didn't sound like there Was any re-scheduling. (In fact, I thought that was rather odd that given there was no easy easy communications back then, that the town was building the hanging scaffolds and the sheriff wasn't too worried about the hangman he had contracted hadn't shown up before the day before the scheduled day of the hanging.)
I should point out to some of you that the fictional town of Val Verde is near the Rio Grande and thus over a hundred miles from San Antonio, where Mace Bishop and Ozzie Grimes are when Mace learns Grimes is going to Val Verde. I don't know when on the trip to Val Verde Mace would have stolen Grimes's stuff. It all depended on how confident Mace felt about tracking Grimes for days without Grimes noticing.
In my thread "Geography" I decided that Val Verde was probably in Maverick County near Piedras Negras, Mexico. So Mace probably would have taken Grimes's stuff somewhere along what is now Route 35 if close to San Antonio or Route 57 if closer to Val Verde. The distance from San Antonio to Piedras Negras along those routes is given as 151.9 miles here:
https://www.google.com/maps/dir/San+Antonio,+Texas/Piedras+Negras,+Coahuila,+Mexico/@29.2157136,-100.6315702,8z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m14!4m13!1m5!1m1!1s0x865c58af04d00eaf:0x856e13b10a016bc!2m2!1d-98.4936282!2d29.4241219!1m5!1m1!1s0x865f8b99d2889193:0x954a33b442b861c2!2m2!1d-100.5408622!2d28.6916182!3e0
So even if Val Verde is 20 miles closer to San Antonio it might take about 6.5 to 13 days to get there riding 10 to 20 miles per day.
So there were two dangers with tying up Ozzie Grimes:
1) That Ozzie would get loose, form a posse, and catch Mace before Mace reached Val Verde.
2) That Ozzie would die of thirst before getting out of his bounds or being found by someone.
iN the movie we see that # 1 did not happen.