Bubber Reeves is a born loser. Actually, there are two types of born losers, so a distinction is in order: first, there are those who fate has decreed shall always lose out no matter what they do; and then there are those who are losers of their own free will. Bubber Reeves is a little of both.
It does seem that fate has dealt him a few bad hands. When he was young, he was sent to reform school for something he did not do (stealing some money). And when he escapes from prison, his fellow escapee murders a man and takes off with the man's car, leaving Bubber behind. And when he hops on board a freight train he thinks is headed for Mexico, it turns out that the train is headed north, in the direction of his home town. Of course, fate also made Bubber the best looking guy in the county, which he should have been able to work to his advantage.
That he does not turn his good looks to his advantage leads us to the fact that Bubber is also the second kind of born loser. He keeps making bad choices. At one point in the movie, he says to Lester that Lester owes Bubber, because Bubber took a rap for him once. Gee, that was a nice thing to do. But I wouldn't take a rap for anybody, especially if I already had a criminal record. Second, with only a year and three days left in his prison sentence, he makes a break for it because he was served a bad pork chop. Third, even if he did hop the wrong freight, he did not have to go to the one town in North America where everyone would know him, the town where he grew up, and where law enforcement would be most likely to be looking for him. Sheriff Calder says, "Bubber knows better than to come back here." No, apparently he doesn't.
Then there is Edwin Stewart, ultimate lickspittle and cuckold. He was the one who stole the money for which Bubber was blamed. He seems to be sorry for what he did, but then he rats out Bubber to gain favor with his boss, Val Rogers, so he is just as despicable as a mature adult as he was as an immature adolescent.
Edwin is married to Emily, a sexy, sultry adulteress. Theirs is the most ludicrous marriage since that of George and Sherry Peatty (Elisha Cooke, Jr. and Marie Windsor) in "The Killing" (1956). She not only is obvious in the affair she is having with Damon, which Edwin pretends not to notice, but she also embarrasses Edwin in front of his boss, and belittles him openly because he is such a wimp that he does not carry a gun, unlike most of the men in that town. Yes, to be a real man in this small Texas town, you have to carry a gun. And it must be a revolver. Semi-automatics are for Yankee city slickers.
And these are just some of the caricatures in this movie. We never feel that we are watching real people in a real town, but caricatures in a town that itself is a caricature. Sheriff Calder and his wife Ruby seem to be genuine people, so it is no surprise that at the end of the movie, they leave town. Not being caricatures, they just do not belong there.
As for Bubber, being the loser that he is, what would normally be an unhappy ending is actually a happy one. That is, when one of the pistol-packing citizens shoots Bubber to death on the steps of the sheriff's office, that would appear to be a bad thing, but we in the audience are relieved. Otherwise, we would have to imagine Bubber going back to prison and having to eat that pork chop.
It does seem that fate has dealt him a few bad hands. When he was young, he was sent to reform school for something he did not do (stealing some money). And when he escapes from prison, his fellow escapee murders a man and takes off with the man's car, leaving Bubber behind. And when he hops on board a freight train he thinks is headed for Mexico, it turns out that the train is headed north, in the direction of his home town. Of course, fate also made Bubber the best looking guy in the county, which he should have been able to work to his advantage.
That he does not turn his good looks to his advantage leads us to the fact that Bubber is also the second kind of born loser. He keeps making bad choices. At one point in the movie, he says to Lester that Lester owes Bubber, because Bubber took a rap for him once. Gee, that was a nice thing to do. But I wouldn't take a rap for anybody, especially if I already had a criminal record. Second, with only a year and three days left in his prison sentence, he makes a break for it because he was served a bad pork chop. Third, even if he did hop the wrong freight, he did not have to go to the one town in North America where everyone would know him, the town where he grew up, and where law enforcement would be most likely to be looking for him. Sheriff Calder says, "Bubber knows better than to come back here." No, apparently he doesn't.
Then there is Edwin Stewart, ultimate lickspittle and cuckold. He was the one who stole the money for which Bubber was blamed. He seems to be sorry for what he did, but then he rats out Bubber to gain favor with his boss, Val Rogers, so he is just as despicable as a mature adult as he was as an immature adolescent.
Edwin is married to Emily, a sexy, sultry adulteress. Theirs is the most ludicrous marriage since that of George and Sherry Peatty (Elisha Cooke, Jr. and Marie Windsor) in "The Killing" (1956). She not only is obvious in the affair she is having with Damon, which Edwin pretends not to notice, but she also embarrasses Edwin in front of his boss, and belittles him openly because he is such a wimp that he does not carry a gun, unlike most of the men in that town. Yes, to be a real man in this small Texas town, you have to carry a gun. And it must be a revolver. Semi-automatics are for Yankee city slickers.
And these are just some of the caricatures in this movie. We never feel that we are watching real people in a real town, but caricatures in a town that itself is a caricature. Sheriff Calder and his wife Ruby seem to be genuine people, so it is no surprise that at the end of the movie, they leave town. Not being caricatures, they just do not belong there.
As for Bubber, being the loser that he is, what would normally be an unhappy ending is actually a happy one. That is, when one of the pistol-packing citizens shoots Bubber to death on the steps of the sheriff's office, that would appear to be a bad thing, but we in the audience are relieved. Otherwise, we would have to imagine Bubber going back to prison and having to eat that pork chop.