Between 1950 and 1955, Anthony Mann directed James Stewart in probably the Western genre's most enduring series: Winchester '73, Bend of the River, The Naked Spur, The Far Country and this culmination, The Man from Laramie-a taut vengeance tale that fills the Cinemascope screen with unexpected violence as harsh as the New Mexico landscape. "I reprised themes and situations by pushing them to their paroxysm," explained Mann. Stewart is again the brooding hero, in circuitous search for his brother's killer, or rather for the gun-runners who traded arms to the Apaches who massacred his brother's cavalry unit. There are distractions in a related story about a ranchman and his feuding family, but Stewart supercharges the frame with film acting at its best-metamorphosing from charm into speechless agony in a single fluid shot-worthy of his work in It's a Wonderful Life and Vertigo. Scott Simmon