False advertising: while there are at least seven men in Seven Angry Men, not all of them are angry – and definitely not at the same time. A more accurate title might be One Angry Man and Seven Who Wish They Had a Better Father, but that was probably less likely to sell tickets at the box office.

At its heart, the American western is all about myth-building. It takes historical settings, and even actual historical events, and reworks them to present a largely non-existent and imagined America of wild frontiers, solitary nobility, and triumphs of the individual over the masses. It does not strike me as a genre that particularly uses an abstract setting and story to make comment on contemporary society as science fiction and particularly horror cinema does. Instead it deals in fantasy: perpetuating the long-gestating American ideal of the individual resisting empire, and forging new opportunities and new territory. The USA remains immersed in the ideal of ‘one man with a gun’, so much so that it is hard not see part of President Donald Trump’s appeal with some voters stemming from the same myth (however inaccurate or misguided).

At the same time, you can never quite separate any film from the historical context in which it was made. For example, the increased cynical and revisionist nature of post-1960s westerns would seem to reflect the growing cynicism in America under the shadow of the Vietnam War, JFK’s assassination, and the Nixon administration.

This is all a long preamble to discuss Seven Angry Men, which is based broadly on historical events with its protagonist based on an actual person. Like most westerns, it distorts historical truths in favour of myth. Like more than a few mid-50s westerns, it engages with issues of race and social justice. Like many films in general, it also seems a reflection of its time. It all compounds to make a complicated result. Parts of it are good. Other aspects feel slightly problematic.

The film follows abolitionist John Brown (Raymond Massey) who leads an extended community of anti-slavery campaigners in 19th century Kansas. When pro-slavery activists storm their camp, killing civilians and destroying property, Brown pushes his sons to enact violent revenge. Once Kansas is admitted into the Union as a slave-free state, Brown redirects his attention to Virginia on a crusade so extreme even his loyal son Owen (Jeffrey Hunter) begins to doubt it.

John Brown was a real person, and his religiously-motivated fight to end slavery was equally real. He is portrayed by Raymond Massey as an angry and unreasonable zealot, and his crusade is depicted as having catastrophic effects on his seven adult sons (the real Brown had 20 children across two wives). It is a treatment that risks making both Brown and his mission unpalatable, since he openly orders the murder of several people in a manner that is clearly not approved by the film itself. He is an abolitionist by way of Melville’s Captain Ahab, and the film redirects its sympathy much more overtly to the conflicted Owen (Hunter). It is through Owen’s growing reluctance that we are led to perceived John Brown as having gone too far.

On the other side it spends one half of the film making a hissable villain out of Kansan slavery supporter Martin White (Leo Gordon), but the other making reasonable and heroic men out of Union figures JEB Stuart (Robert Lupton) and Robert E. Lee (Robert Osterloh) when Brown’s hostage-taking scheme goes awry in Harper’s Ferry, Virginia. While Brown fights to free all slaves, there is a noted paucity of African characters on screen. One that is presented is killed by Brown’s men when he refuses to capitulate to their demands. It is a strange presentation of American slavery that immediately makes one ponder the times in which Seven Angry Men was made.

The film was released in March 1955, less than a year after the US Supreme Court ruled school segregation illegal. Rosa Parks would not take her famous bus ride until 1 December. The Civil Rights Act, which ensured all people of colour the right to vote, was still two years down the road. There is an unshakeable sense that Seven Angry Men softballs its attitude to slavery or, more specifically, towards the white Americans of the 19th century that owned slaves. After all, it would not help Allied Artists Pictures’ financial bottom line if audiences across a string of publicly segregated states refused to watch the movie. Were Seven Angry Men made even 10 years later, I suspect its treatment of John Brown would be very different.

One should, of course, be careful to review films as they are and not based on what we would rather they be. Shot by Ellsworth Fredericks (Sayonara), the film has a crisp and well-framed look. In some later scenes it almost feels expressionistic. While Raymond Massey’s performance verges on excess, there are strong and dignified turns by other actors. Jeffrey Hunter is well grounded as Owen, as is Debra Paget as his love interest Elizabeth. Dennis Weaver benefits from slightly more interesting material than his peers as John Jr, the brother for whom the violence is too much and who succumbs to a mental breakdown.

It is director Charles Marquis Warren that I cannot quite fathom. His film seems to approve and condemn John Brown in turns, muddying any possible clear reading of where his film sits morally. It appears to condemn violence in all forms – even if that violence is in service of freedom. It is a film about slavery without any actual slaves in sight. It bears so many hallmarks of the western – the frontier-building and the exceptionalism – but when it comes to the lone hero fighting for justice, it is as if it has taken the opposite side. In this showdown, the empire strikes back.

1955 West is a review project to watch as many western features from 1955 as possible, in order to gain a ‘snapshot’ view of the genre at its height. According to Letterboxd, there were 72 westerns released that year. You can see all of FictionMachine’s reviews of them to date by clicking here.