Gary cooper biography movie the hanging tree

Gary cooper, wife

Johnson in Scott , and it is set in the gold fields of Montana during the gold rush of the s and s. The story follows a doctor who saves a criminal from a lynch mob , then earns the enmity of several prospectors while trying to protect a young woman whom he has nursed back to health after she was injured in a coach robbery. Karl Malden assumed directing duties for several days when Daves fell ill, [ 2 ] and the film represented the first cinematic appearance for George C.

Joseph Frail Gary Cooper —doctor, gambler, gunslinger—rides into the small town of Skull Creek, Montana, with miners in a gold rush, looking to set up a doctor's office. He passes by the "hanging tree," an old oak with a thick branch over which has been slung a rope with a frayed end, presumably a former noose. He rescues and treats Rune Ben Piazza , a young man who was shot by Frenchy Karl Malden while trying to steal gold from a sluice.

As Rune has no money to pay for his care, Frail forces Rune into temporary servitude with the threat of revealing he is the thief. A stagecoach is robbed and overturned, killing the driver and a male passenger. A search party is formed, and Frenchy finds the sole survivor, Swiss immigrant Elizabeth Mahler Maria Schell , daughter of the male passenger.

Crippled by burns, blindness and dehydration, Elizabeth is moved into a house next to the doctor's house to recover. The placement causes much chagrin among the town's righteous women, who believe that Elizabeth may be paying for her medical care through illicit behavior.