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The Ox-Bow Incident Overview:

The Ox-Bow Incident (1943) was a Crime - Drama Film directed by William A. Wellman and produced by Lamar Trotti.

The Ox-Bow Incident was inducted into the National Film Registry in 1998.

Academy Awards 1943 --- Ceremony Number 16 (source: AMPAS)

AwardRecipientResult
Best Picture20th Century-FoxNominated
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The Ox-Bow Incident BlogHub Articles:

Henry Fonda and Dana Andrews in "The Ox-Bow Incident"

By Stephen Reginald on Aug 27, 2020 From Classic Movie Man

Henry Fonda and Dana Andrews in "The Ox-Bow Incident" The Ox-Box Incident (1943) is an American western film directed by Wiliam A. Wellman, starring Henry Fonda, Dana Andrews, and an extraordinary supporting cast that includes Anthony Quinn, Harry Morgan, Mary Beth Hughes, and Jane Darwell. The... Read full article

Review: The Ox-Bow Incident (1943)

By 4 Star Film Fan on Apr 23, 2019 From 4 Star Films

We know the score. Two drifters ride into town. They sidle up to the bar for some shots, looking for something to do in a lazy Nevada dust-hole. Their faces are equally familiar to anyone who has ever seen even a few of the old oaters. Feisty Henry Fonda as Gil Carter and his more even-keeled pal Ar... Read full article

The Ox-Bow Incident (1943)

By Beatrice on Sep 21, 2014 From Flickers in Time

The Ox-Bow Incident Directed by William A. Wellman Written by Lamar Trotti from the novel by Walter Van Tilberg Clark 1943/USA Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation Repeat viewing/Netflix Rental Number 168 of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die Gil Carter: Hangin’ is any man’s busin... Read full article

The Ox-Bow Incident (1943)

By 4 Star Film Fan on Aug 8, 2014 From 4 Star Films

Starring Henry Fonda, Dana Andrews, Harry Morgan, Anthony Quinn, and many more, the film begins with two drifters (Fonda and Morgan) who enter a small western town. Soon it gets around that a man is dead and some of his cattle were also stolen. Hurriedly, a posse is put together and they ride off to... Read full article

The Ox-Bow Incident (1943)

By 4 Star Film Fan on Aug 8, 2014 From 4 Star Films

Starring Henry Fonda, Dana Andrews, Harry Morgan, Anthony Quinn, and many more, the film begins with two drifters (Fonda and Morgan) who enter a small western town. Soon it gets around that a man is dead and some of his cattle were also stolen. Hurriedly, a posse is put together and they ride off to... Read full article

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The Ox-Bow Incident Quotes:

Jenny Grier: [when Juan finally speaks English after pretending he only knows Spanish] So, he speaks American!
Juan Martínez: And ten other languages, my dear - but I don't tell anything I don't want to in any of them.
Judge Daniel Tyler: One more word out of you, Smith, and I'll have you up for impeding the course of justice.
Jenny Grier: Judge, you can't impede what don't move anyway.
[Carter and Croft are out with the posse]
Gil Carter: Doin' this in the middle of the night's crazy.
Art Croft: Thought you liked excitement?
Gil Carter: I got nothin' particular against hangin' a murderin' rustler; it's just I don't like doin' it in the dark. There's always some crazy fool who'll lose his head and start hangin' everybody in sight.
Art Croft: Us?
Gil Carter: Funnier things have happened.
Art Croft: Well we didn't have to come.
Gil Carter: Look kinda funny if we hadn't, wouldn't it?
[last lines]
Art Croft: Where are we goin'?
Gil Carter: He said he wanted his wife to get this letter, didn't he? Said there was nobody to look after the kids, didn't he?
[they both mount and ride out of town]
Gil Carter: [Gil and Art discuss their uneasiness about certain members of the posse] Besides, I like to pick my own bosses.
Art Croft: Whether we picked 'em or not, we sure got 'em.
Gil Carter: That's what I don't like. That Smith, and Bartlett, shootin' off their mouths... Farnley... and that renegade Tetley, struttin' around in his uniform pretending he's so much. He never even *saw* the South until after the war, and then only long enough to marry that kid's mother and get run outta' the place by her folks.
Art Croft: I figured there was somethin' fishy about him, dressin' up like that.
Gil Carter: For sure. Whydya' suppose he'd be livin' in this neck 'o the woods if he didn't have something to hide?
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The Ox-Bow Incident Facts
The production on the film would be shut down for a week or ten days "due to the $5,000-per-film limit on new construction materials." During the shutdown, already used sets were torn down so that their material could be re-used to build the mountain pass set. Studio publicity noted that the Ox-Bow Valley setting was "the largest set ever constructed" by Fox, and that it covered 26,703 feet.
Henry Fonda always regarded this as one of his favorite films.
Henry Fonda was generally unhappy with the quality of the films he had to do while under contract with 20th Century Fox. This was one of only two films from that period that he was actually enthusiastic about starring in. The other was The Grapes of Wrath.
The Hays Office--the industry's censors--initially was reluctant to approve the script because of its suggestion that the sheriff condoned the lynchings. The treatment of the lynchings and the characterization of those participating were discussed by the PCA and the studio at great length, and in a June 9, 1942 letter, PCA director Joseph Breen advised studio public relations head Jason S. Joy that the script would be approved if: "Major Tetley's" suicide is retained, "thus constituting a punishment for the ring-leader of the lynching party;" there is an indication that the whole gang will be arrested; the character of "Gil" is rewritten to make him less callous and more active in trying to stop the lynchings; and "Davies'" denunciation of the killings is retained.
A very unusual film for its time in that it features an Afro-American character as one of the main voices of conscience.
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