The hardened cowboy Glyn McLyntock, played by James Stewart, struggles to keep his dark past hidden while leading a wagon train through the treacherous Oregon landscape. To help the settlers survive in these perilous conditions, he must choose his allies carefully and confront the demons of his former self.
Known in Hollywood as an exceptional “genre craftsman,” Anthony Mann was also highly esteemed by postwar film critics from Cahiers du Cinéma. André Bazin described Mann as a “true poet of the western,” Jacques Rivette called him “one of the four great directors of postwar Hollywood,” and Jean-Luc Godard remarked that Mann rediscovered the western as one might rediscover arithmetic in a basic math course. The power of his westerns lies in their abstract simplicity, where the protagonists typically follow a specific path that becomes an unspoken symbol for their search for direction in life.
Bend of the River was the second of eight films Mann and Stewart made together and marked a turning point in Stewart's career, bringing forth the darker side of the actor.
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