★★★★★ Anthony Mann was one of the geniuses of the western, although his production is much more varied. The cycle of films that he shot with James Stewart as the main character is a reflection on the internal motives of those hard men who tried to adapt after the Civil War to the wild conquest of the West. The Price… tells how a man who has lost his home tries to become a bounty hunter and goes after a ferocious killer. Heroism is, in Mann, an accidental matter, although it also comes from a moral decision. His characters are complex, not always likeable, far from the stereotype. The beautiful landscape counterpoints the tormented nature of its creatures. The work of Robert Ryan, , gives another thickness to a film that can hardly be made today: hard, beautiful and, at the same time, tormented.
