Technicolor was different back then. It wasn't just bright; it was saturated, almost heavy, like you could reach out and touch the velvet on a saloon girl’s dress. When you sit down to watch the Great Day in the Morning movie, that’s the first thing that hits you. It’s 1861 in Denver, Colorado. The air is thick with the scent of gold and the looming shadow of the Civil War. Most people talk about The Searchers or Shane when they discuss the golden age of Westerns, but Jacques Tourneur’s 1956 gem deserves a seat at that same high-stakes poker table. It’s gritty. It’s beautiful. It’s surprisingly complicated for a movie made in the mid-fifties.
You’ve got Robert Stack playing Owen Pentecost. He’s not your typical white-hat hero. Honestly, he’s kind of a jerk at first. He rolls into Denver, wins a hotel in a card game, and basically tells everyone he’s only looking out for himself. He’s a Southerner in a town that is rapidly splitting between Union and Confederate loyalties. While everyone else is picking sides and preparing to bleed for a cause, Pentecost is just trying to get rich.
The Visual Mastery of Jacques Tourneur
Jacques Tourneur is a name that cinephiles whisper with a certain kind of reverence. He’s the guy behind Out of the Past and Cat People. He knew how to use shadows. Even in the broad daylight of a Western, Tourneur finds ways to make the environment feel claustrophobic and tense.
The Great Day in the Morning movie looks better than almost anything else released in 1956 because Tourneur treated the landscape like a character. He didn’t just point the camera at a mountain. He used the SuperScope widescreen process to emphasize the isolation of the characters. Look at the scene where Pentecost is riding through the snowy pass. The white of the snow isn’t just a backdrop; it’s an oppressive force. It highlights the vulnerability of a man who thinks he’s untouchable.
Virginia Mayo and Ruth Roman: Not Just Damsels
Usually, 1950s Westerns give women about two dimensions. They’re either the schoolmarm or the "woman with a past." Here, we get Ann Merry Alaine (Virginia Mayo) and Boston Grant (Ruth Roman).
They aren't just there to be rescued.
Ann is trying to open a clothing store—an entrepreneur in a rough mining town. Boston is a gambler, someone who understands the stakes of the world Pentecost lives in better than he does. Their rivalry isn’t just about a man; it’s about survival and class. You see the friction between the "respectable" life Ann represents and the cynical, realistic world Boston inhabits. It’s a messy love triangle that actually feels like it has stakes.
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Why the Great Day in the Morning Movie Still Matters
Most Westerns of this era are very "us vs. them." The Union is good, the Confederacy is bad—or vice versa, depending on the filmmaker's leanings. This film is more interested in the gray areas. It’s about the moment before the first shot is fired, when neighbors start looking at each other with suspicion.
Pentecost is a Southern man who doesn't necessarily believe in the "Cause" but finds himself tethered to it by a sense of misplaced honor. It’s a character study in stubbornness. When he eventually agrees to help smuggle gold out of Denver for the Confederacy, he isn't doing it out of political fervor. He’s doing it because he gave his word, and in a world where everything else is falling apart, his word is the only currency he has left.
That’s a very modern sentiment.
We see this today in characters like Don Draper or Tony Soprano—men trapped by their own rigid codes even when those codes are actively destroying them. Robert Stack plays this with a cold, almost robotic intensity that works perfectly. He doesn’t give you an easy way in. You have to watch him and decide for yourself if he’s worth rooting for.
Historical Context: Denver in 1861
Denver wasn't a city yet; it was a muddy camp full of people who had failed everywhere else. The film captures that "frontier on the edge of civilization" vibe perfectly. You have the luxury of the hotel Pentecost wins, but just outside the doors, it’s dirt and violence.
The gold is the catalyst.
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History tells us that Colorado's gold was vital. The Union needed it to fund the war effort. The Confederacy wanted it to buy recognition from Europe. By placing the Great Day in the Morning movie right at this intersection, the screenwriter (Lesser Samuels, adapting the novel by Robert Hardy Andrews) turned a standard Western into a political thriller.
Technical Brilliance and the SuperScope Format
If you're a film nerd, the technical specs of this movie are fascinating. RKO was struggling at the time, and they used SuperScope to compete with CinemaScope. It was a "poor man's widescreen" in some ways, but in the hands of a cinematographer like William H. Clothier, it looked magnificent. Clothier eventually became John Wayne’s favorite cameraman, and you can see why here. The depth of field in the outdoor shots is incredible.
- Director: Jacques Tourneur
- Cinematography: William H. Clothier
- Release Year: 1956
- Production Company: RKO Radio Pictures
The film doesn't rely on massive battles. Instead, it uses small-scale skirmishes to represent the larger war. A shootout in a canyon feels like a turning point in the world because, for these characters, it is. The sound design—the sharp crack of a rifle echoing off the rocks—is startlingly crisp for a mid-century production.
Acknowledging the Limitations
Is it perfect? No.
By today’s standards, the pacing can feel a bit deliberate. It’s a "slow burn" before that term was popular. Some of the secondary characters are a bit trope-heavy, and the ending feels a little rushed compared to the meticulous buildup of the first two acts. Also, like many films of the era, it skirts around the deeper horrors of the Civil War to focus on the "honor" of the soldiers. It’s a product of its time, and you have to view it through that lens.
But if you can handle the 1950s cinematic language, there’s a lot of meat on the bone here.
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How to Watch and What to Look For
Finding a high-quality version of the Great Day in the Morning movie used to be a chore. For years, it was relegated to late-night cable or blurry public domain DVDs. Thankfully, recent restorations have brought back the vibrancy of the Technicolor.
When you watch it, pay attention to the color red. Tourneur uses it sparingly but effectively—in the dresses, in the blood, in the flags. It’s a visual shorthand for the violence that everyone is trying to ignore but can’t escape.
- Look for the contrast between the indoor hotel scenes and the outdoor wilderness. The hotel is Pentecost’s fortress of "civilization," while the mountains are where the truth comes out.
- Watch Robert Stack’s eyes. He does a lot of acting without saying a word. He’s a man who is constantly calculating the cost of his next move.
- Listen to the score by William Lava. It’s sweeping and traditional, but it hits these minor chords during the moments of political tension that feel genuinely uneasy.
Actionable Insights for Classic Film Fans
If you want to dive deeper into this specific era of filmmaking, don't just stop at this movie. To truly appreciate what Tourneur was doing, you should pair a viewing of this film with a few others.
Start by watching Tourneur’s Canyon Passage (1946). It’s another Western, but it deals more with the community and the building of a town. Seeing the two together shows how his perspective on the West shifted from communal growth to individualistic survival over a decade.
Next, track down a copy of the original novel by Robert Hardy Andrews. It provides a lot more internal monologue for Pentecost that explains his Southern ties in more detail.
Finally, check out the work of William H. Clothier. If you like the way this movie looks, watch The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. You’ll see the evolution of his style from the bright Technicolor of Denver to the stark, symbolic black and white of his later work.
The Great Day in the Morning movie isn't just a relic. It's a bridge between the old-fashioned "cowboys and indians" movies of the 40s and the cynical, "anti-Western" movement that would take over in the late 60s and 70s. It’s a film about a man trying to stay neutral in a world that demands a side. That’s a story that never actually goes out of style.
To get the most out of this film today, seek out the Warner Archive Blu-ray release. It’s the only version that truly preserves the SuperScope aspect ratio and the saturation of the original Technicolor prints. Avoid the cropped 4:3 versions found on some streaming sites; they cut out half of Tourneur's carefully composed frames. Watching it in the correct format is the difference between seeing a masterpiece and seeing a period piece.