Critics reviews

Mann's distinction as a landscape artist using the full resources of both Technicolor and Cinemascope comes to the fore in the opening sequences of The Man from Laramie, where the open sky and terrain of New Mexico is subdivided mainly into elemental color values — blue (sky), various browns (ground and rocks, occasional vegetation) and white (salt lagoons) — offset mainly by the red of Stewart's bandana and the light green of Axel Nicol's shirt.

This picture is exceptionally emblematic of how the two mutually deconstructed one of Hollywood's staple genres and concurrently redefined one of its most amiable star personas. In Stewart, just as in the Western genre itself, Mann found a cinematic mechanism with which he could redefine the Western while also now having the embodiment of an individualistic, auteurist worldview.

An early example of the relatively short-lived CinemaScope format, the film, attuned as it is to the photographic capacity of a then-fresh technology, appropriately stands as one of the era's most beautiful. Exploited with expert skill, the anamorphic breadth is employed in service of not just exterior expanse, but also the synergistic arrangement of actors against imposing landscapes and amongst opposing bodies.

The Man From Laramie is a gorgeous paroxysm, one that depicts suffocating, doomed intimacy in the open air. It features one of Stewart's finest performances, pitched between his natural gentle demeanor, seen in his guarded flirtation with the Waggoman niece (Cathy O'Donnell), and blinkered, self-destructive rage, whenever his physical boundaries are violated. He is a docile animal except when cornered, when he attempts to carve his own fate out of others' flesh.

The film's most vivid moments, however, involve violence, highly stylized to avoid explicit depiction while giving the impression of seeing every gruesome detail... Mann employs long shots to great effect, as in a scene of Lockhart walking alone at night as a figure emerges on the roof of the building next to him to attack, or of Vic inadvertently sending Alec tumbling down a hill.

Visually and thematically, The Man From Laramie exemplifies Mann's highly accomplished use of CinemaScope... [The film] represents one of the most professional uses of the new format that is meaningful rather than merely flamboyant.