<\/p>\n
Fregonese saw the dramatic potential of a weak or flawed male character<\/strong>, especially by contrast with a gentle, patiently loving woman who offers the hero a chance to abandon his nervous wanderings and settle down. Most of the time the romantic interlude proves only a brief respite, or a possibility that remains poignantly unfulfilled. For Fregonese, as his life and films attest, the only real imperative was to keep moving, right to the end.<\/p>\n In Saddle Tramp<\/em> (USA\/1950) Joel McCrea<\/strong> plays Chuck Conner<\/strong>, a good-natured and gentle cowboy who suddenly has to take care of four children. The film belongs to a small cycle of westerns in which the cowboy\u2019s time in the blissful presence of children chimes with the end of the frontier and the beginning of settlement (3 Godfathers<\/em>, Bad Bascomb<\/em>). But Fregonese gives this familiar theme an extra depth, as well as a twist: by showing the children to be as infatuated by the myth of the wanderer as the cowboy is himself. It\u2019s up to the cowboy, in what amounts to an act of self-sacrifice, to bring the children to their senses by rejecting the only way of life he knows.<\/p>\n In Apache Drums<\/em> (USA\/1951), the fast-talking gambler and gunman Sam Leeds<\/strong> (Stephen McNally<\/strong>), after being kicked out of a mining town in the New Mexico desert that is on the verge of becoming respectable, comes across the bodies of the dance hall girls massacred by a band of Apache warriors. He reluctantly returns to town to warn the residents of the impending threat. Even when convention requires Sam to become a hero and lead the townspeople to safety, Fregonese continues to emphasize his weakness and vanity \u2013 he\u2019s far more interested in looking like a hero than in actually becoming one, and his flamboyance and impulsiveness leads to disaster.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/ilcinemaritrovato.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/04\/onewaystreet.jpg\")
<\/a>Among these fascinating antihero there is, for instance, the main character of One Way Street<\/em> (USA\/1950), Frank Matson <\/strong>(played by James Mason<\/strong>), a shady physician who takes off with a bag full of stolen money and the girlfriend of a gang leader, hiding out with her in Mexico. Matson carries identical leather handbags, one containing his medical tools and the other the stolen money, representing his existentialist choice between two ways of life. Cinical and violent, he could be redempted but the destiny will get the better of him. \u201cFor no matter the tears that may be wept, the appointment will be kept\u201d, the film\u2019s opening title card bluntly announces.<\/p>\n