For a long time, I thought James Stewart was simply the nicest man to ever appear in a Western. Then I started working through his filmography in order, and that image fell apart. Yes, he could still play the decent, principled hero better than almost anyone. However, what a lot of casual viewers miss is that Stewart spent the 1950s systematically dismantling that reputation, one Western at a time. He brought anger, obsession, grief, and moral uncertainty to a genre that had largely been built around clean-cut heroes.

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