My Little Chickadee (1940), directed by Edward F. Cline. What a “euphonious appellation,” my what “symmetrical digits,” “Is this a game of chance?” “Not the way I play it. No.” This film has its moments, but fewer of them than it might have once had. Both Mae West and W. C. Fields are amusing actors, and they play off each other well here, but it is difficult to watch and hear racist goings on that we have in this picture. It would be okay if the action just kept with the western spoof stuff without us having to watch Fields interact with Milton (George Moran), the Native person played by a white person and caricatured unpleasantly. Fields also has a couple of one-liners that opt for the racial slur. What just might save the picture is Mae West’s character, Flower Belle, who controls the situation admirably, although it may be difficult to see her as the siren she is supposed to be. She has three men on the string, one a hapless buffoon, another a thief/saloon owner/murderer, and the third a newspaper editor. Her interest in the saloon owner who moonlights as a masked robber gives us a moral conundrum perhaps better not contemplated. West’s ability at innuendo is nowhere more evident than in the film’s final shot when the words The End appear on the screen. As for Field’s Cuthbert J. Twillie he does his thing, even bedding down with a goat at one point. “Beelzebub! I’ve been hoodwinked.” All in all, this is a film for the archives.

 

Western Union (1941), directed by Fritz Lang. This is the second of Lang’s three westerns, and perhaps the weakest of the three. It does have splendid locations shots, but at times it seems to want to be a comedy and at other times a tragedy and then a Civil War drama and then again a historical epic depicting the building of the telegraph from Omaha to Salt Lake City. It also offers an unfortunate depiction of Native Americans. There are, however, Langian elements here. We have Lang’s interest in communications (the telegraph) and in the capital necessary for the building of an infrastructure. We have a company of men working together to build a nation. We also have Lang’s tormented hero, on the run, but fated to run right smack into that from which he is running. The relationship between Vance Shaw (Randolph Scott) and Edward Creighton (Dean Jagger) has an intensity we often see between men in Lang’s films. The doomed relationship between Shaw and Sue Creighton (Virginia Gilmore) is also Langian. All in all, this is a mixed pleasure.

Home in Oklahoma (1946), directed by William Witney. B western starring Roy Rogers, Trigger, Dale Evans, and ‘Gabby’ Hayes. Roy and Dale are rival newspaper reporters, he from the country and she from the city, out to solve the murder of Sam Talbot, a wealthy rancher. Talbot leaves his ranch not to his only surviving relative, niece Jan Holloway (Carol Hughes), but to the 12-year-old boy, Duke Lowery (Lanny Rees). Being passed over for the young boy does not sit well with Ms Holloway. We have much riding about, quite a bit of singing, some detective work, some humour from Gabby, a vicious fist fight, a few flying bullets, and the discovery that Jan and her partner/friend Steve McClory (George Meeker) are the villains and murderers. There is nothing out of the ordinary here for a Roy Rogers film and B western, but the performances are sprightly and Witney’s direction is crisp. Roy and Dale as newspaper people give us something akin, albeit without the sophistication, to Tracy and Hepburn as lawyers in Adam’s Rib.

 

Canyon Passage (1946), directed by Jacques Tourneur. Tourneur is a director I admire for his lush colour films and his moody black and white films. His films ooze atmosphere. Canyon Passage, Tourneur’s first colour film and his first western, delivers much atmosphere, much colour, and much more. The much more includes a cast of characters who prove to be deftly human. As one reviewer noted, there are no white hats/black hats here. With the exception of Ward Bond’s villain, Honey Bragg, these people are a mixture of good and bad. This is nowhere more evident than in the friendship between Logan (Dana Andrews) and George (Brian Donlevy). The location shooting in Oregon is masterful and the on-location sets for the various places are meticulous. One of these places, Jacksonville, looks as if it was hewed out of the wilderness without much planning. Interiors and exteriors are impressive. The film examines the frontier in 1856 and the tensions it raises between communal activity and individual aspirations. Along for the ride is Hi Linnet (Hoagy Carmichael) who strums a mandolin and sings a few songs, including “Ole Buttermilk Sky.” This is a western with a fairly familiar plot, but with depth. Did I say fairly familiar plot? Well, the plot is not straight forward; it has threads that have to do with survival in the wilderness, conflict with native peoples, human failings, frontier justice, the love of nature, relationships between men and women. Several women appear in important roles; the two most prominent are Lucy (Susan Hayward) and Caroline (Patricia Roc). All in all, this is a special western.

Go West (1940), directed by Edward Buzzell. The Marx brother (3 of them) go west in this spoof of westerns. A late entry into the brothers’ filmography, Go West is better than I remember it from a long ago viewing. We first see the brothers out west in a scene with Monument Valley as a backdrop, and then we see them inside a stagecoach in a scene that reminds me of both Ford’s famous film and the stateroom scene from Night at the Opera. The final chase scene with horse and buggy racing a locomotive might remind us of Keaton’s The General. Scenes in the saloon might remind us of Destry Rides Again. You get the idea, this is a film that plays loosely with western tropes. The obligatory scenes of Chico at the piano and Harpo at the – well harp, are as good, if not better, than similar scenes in the earlier films. Both are clever and inventive. Groucho manages some acerbic one-liners, and Harpo does his business with scissors and honker and facial expressions. Even the scenes in the Indian village are less offensive than they might have been. The brothers’ films for MGM are generally dismissed as inferior than the ones they made with Paramount, but Go West has its moments and manages to be fun.

Duel in the Sun (1946), directed by King Vidor (with uncredited help from some six others, including Joseph von Sternberg!). This is David O. Selznik’s infamous production of a film that was derided in the press as “Lust in the Dust.” Selznik wanted to replicate his success with Gone with the Wind, and also to make Jennifer Jones a star. The result is this over-heated western that has few typically “western” moments but much obsession. Right from the get-go, with the prologue that has Herbert Marshall shoot his Native American wife for her infidelity and say goodbye to his biracial daughter, Pearl (Jones), we have characters who obsess over one thing and another, mostly sex. This is a film with high ambition, even beginning with a nine-minute Prelude, followed by a three-minute Overture, before the credits role. The cast is a who’s who of heavyweights: Lillian Gish, Lionel Barrymore, Charles Bickford, Walter Houston, Harry Carey, Joseph Cotton, Otto Kruger, Butterfly McQueen, and Gregory Peck. Peck has the role of Lewt (I kept hearing ‘Lewd’) McCanles, the amoral son of the patriarch, Senator Jackson McCanles (Barrymore). If you have seen the film, imagine John Wayne in the role of this dissolute son who leers and sneers and generally behaves in a disgusting manner; Wayne was the first actor signed to play Lewt, but Selznik thought he did not have enough sex appeal. Anyway, we have a sprawling western that tries to deliver spectacle and deep emotion. It tries too hard and gives us unpleasant characters and an unsavoury presentation of racial stereotyping. Oh, the film does have some striking cinematography courtesy of Lee Garmes, Ray Rennahan, and Hal Rosson. The confrontation between the McCanles ranch hands and the railroad-building crew is as spectacular as it gets in westerns, with hundreds of horses and men riding and riding across the wind-swept landscape. Then we have the ending, an ending that must be one of the most, if not the most, risible in cinema history. I confess I am a sucker for this ending.

 Billy the Kid (1930), directed by King Vidor. This is King Vidor’s first western, and it has the look of silent westerns even including intertitles. The costumes, the sets, the landscapes, the camera placings, and the acting are all reminiscent of the silent period in film. Of course, the film does have sound; it is 1930. The story begins with a written statement from the Governor of New Mexico informing us that Billy the Kid was an honourable man, out for justice. In other words, we see at the outset that this story sets out to reinvent history, to present a fiction, and to participate in the American tendency to make heroes out of villains. The role of Billy goes to a young John (later Johnny) Mack Brown, and I suspect the makers of this film thought this gig would make a star out of him. Well, things worked out for Johnny about the same way they worked out for John Wayne and The Big Trail in the same year. Both Mack Brown and Wayne ended up on Poverty Row. Anyhow, the story is familiar. We have the Lincoln County war, the hatred of Bob Ballinger (Warner Richmond) for Billy, the siege at the McSween ranch, and the uneasy friendship between Billy and Pat Garrett (Wallace Berry). Mack Brown has a certain boyish charm, and Wallace Berry is his bluff broad self. Along for comic relief is Roscoe Ates as Old Stuff. The action has a brutality that may surprise some viewers. The film has its moments, but it cannot compare to Vidor’s later westerns, especially Duel in the Sun (1946, affectionately known as “Lust in the Dust”), and Man Without a Star (1956).

Overland Stage Raiders (1938), directed by George Sherman. This one is about the Three Mesquiteers (Stony Brook, Tuscon Smith, and Lullaby Joslin accompanied by Elmer) forming an airplane company to fly gold and passengers from one place to another. Their flying business threatens to ruin the business of the local bus company thereby setting up a situation in which the bus company bad guys try to ruin the flying business. John Wayne plays Stony Brook just a year before he will vault to stardom in Stagecoach. He seems mildly interested in playing Stony. He also seems mildly interested in the film’s female lead, Beth Hoyt, played by Louise Brooks in her final film role. She too seems only mildly interested in playing Beth Hoyt, and she is without the famous hair that she popularized in her late silent films. The plot and action are fairly absurd, but this is not unusual for this kind of film. As a western, it boasts not only horses, but trains, busses, and airplanes. Wayne makes his entrance by jumping from an airplane. Lullaby’s dummy friend, Elmer, makes only a small appearance, but this appearance is as absurdly concocted as much of the other goings-on in the film. The characters treat Elmer as if he was human, and he, in return, appears to relish his humanity. As an entry in Republic’s Three Mesquiteers series, it holds its own, and it does have Louse Brooks.

Stagecoach (1939), directed by John Ford. Famously, Orson Welles claimed to have watched Stagecoach 40 times in preparation for filming Citizen Kane. Also, when asked what directors he liked, Welles replied that he like the old masters, John Ford, John Ford, and John Ford. And so we have Stagecoach, a film that sings a song of camera, as a review at the time noted. This film saves its action for the last third of its running time, the first two thirds being more concerned with character and context. The context here has to do with bankers (one character notes that the country would do well to have a businessman as president!), belles, and brigands. Society, encapsulated in the small community inside and on the stagecoach, is replete with prejudice, misunderstanding, honour, honour misplaced, innocence and experience. As Welles says, the film offers a course in film making in its camera placements, cinematography, choreography, lighting, deep focus, and so on. As many have noted, Ford breaks the 180 degree rule, but he does so to great effect. He also gives us, for the first time, the backdrop of Monument Valley, a location that becomes a metonymy for all that the west represents. That final third of the film has a couple of stunning stunts carried out by the incomparable Yakima Canutt. Of course, the film also has its failings. Here, from Wikipedia, is a review of its failings.

"Along with certain other classic films of its period (e.g., Gone With the Wind [20]; [21]), Stagecoach has been criticized for its depiction of historical settings and events, as well as for racist depictions of Native Americans generally and of Apaches in particular. Stagecoach is set at a time of escalating white settler encroachment upon, and forcible seizure of, Native American lands in the American Southwest, a process that eventually forced Native Americans onto reservations. Although its main characters are all settlers of one kind or another, the film presents Apache violence against settlers wholly absent from this historical context. Writing in 2011, Roger Ebert noted: "The film's attitudes toward Native Americans are unenlightened. The Apaches are seen simply as murderous savages; there is no suggestion the white men have invaded their land. Ford shared that simple view with countless other makers of Westerns, and if it was crude in 1939 it was even more so as late as 'The Searchers' (1956), the greatest Ford/Wayne collaboration". Moreover, Stagecoach's iconic stagecoach chase scene has been criticized for its use of what is by now a long-clichéd plot device in Western films: that of inexperienced and vastly outgunned white settlers soundly defeating seasoned Native American warriors despite impossible odds; viewed in this light, the stagecoach chase scene appears both absurd and racially questionable."

The last remark about the small band defeating a much larger group of attackers is somewhat misleading. The end here has the familiar cliché that has the cavalry arriving in the nick of time to avoid a certain disaster. 

Despite its failings, Stagecoach marks an important moment in the development of film and this film's specific genre.

 The Unknown Ranger (1920), directed by Harris Gordon. What amazes me about this early silent western is the extended chase across precipitous cliffs late in the film. The camera here and throughout the film does not move, and yet we have the impression of furious action and cliff hanger (literally) action. The film also boasts two flashbacks, one a fabrication by the villain and the other a truthful account by the hero, Buck Manning (Rex Ray). The plot has to do with a villain who disguises himself as a writer come west to research local colour. In reality, he is a nefarious opium smuggler. He is aided by two Mexican men and a part Native American woman. Of course, there is a young maiden involved, Jo Blair (Marie Newall). Not the most ground-breaking western ever, but an enjoyable example of just how clever movies could be way back before the technology we now take for granted.

 

Wolf Lowry (1917), Directed by William S. Hart. One of Hart’s early features, Wolf Lowry once again gives us the good bad man, or in this case a sheep in wolf’s clothing. The eponymous hero is something of a roustabout who enjoys pretending to hang his Chinese cook! This unfortunate scene occurs early in the film. He also dislikes nesters, until a pretty young woman, Mary Davis (Margery Wilson) comes to nest on Wolf’s property. Wolf is smitten. The print I saw on YouTube is excellent; I especially like the night scenes cast in blue. In terms of story, the film does not offer a great deal. After leaving his fiancée’s true love for the wolves, the Hart character (Wolf Lowry) has a change of heart and rides back to rescue the young man and bring him to marry the girl. The film does not have a lot of action, but it does have fisticuffs between Wolf and the villain of the piece, Buck Fanning (Aaron Edwards).

 The Big Trail (1930), directed by Raoul Walsh. This is the film that was supposed to make John Wayne a star. It did not! The film flopped despite its wide screen grandeur and exorbitant production costs. And Wayne spent the next nine years working in Poverty Row features. Looking back on the film, I am surprised the film flopped. I think of it as the last of the early cinema's three epics dealing with Manifest Destiny, the myth of the opening of America's west. The other two films are James Cruz's The Covered Wagon (1923) and John Ford's The Iron Horse (1924). These are large scale productions that celebrate the American spirit. The Big Trail is impressive with its huge prairie schooners drawn by oxen through mud and snow and desert. The realism of the trek is quite astonishing, especially, but not only, in the famous scene in which the people, the wagons, the animals are lowered down a steep cliff on ropes. The story is just something to keep the journey going. Most important are the shots of working pioneers, men and women trudging their way west and hacking down trees and forging ahead into a new world. As for a young John Wayne in his first starring role, he is innocently appealing as he deals with the Bluto-voiced Red Flack (Tyrone Power, Sr.) and his sidekicks.

from Wikipedia:
"For the film, Walsh had employed 93 actors and used as many as 725 natives from five different Indian tribes. He also obtained 185 wagons, 1,800 cows, 1,400 horses, 500 buffalos and 700 chickens, pigs and dogs for the production of the film.

Walsh offered the lead to actor Gary Cooper, who couldn't accept it. According to John Ford's later account, Walsh supposedly then asked Ford for casting suggestions, whereupon Ford recommended a then-unknown named John Wayne because he "liked the looks of this new kid with a funny walk, like he owned the world". When Wayne professed inexperience, Walsh told him to just "sit good on a horse and point". Walsh said that he initially saw Wayne, then a prop man, moving heavy furniture as though it were light as a feather, then decided to test him for the part.... Filming on The Big Trail began on-location just outside Santa Fe, New Mexico in April 1930, which was unheard of at the time and quickly became very costly to the studio.

The shoot lasted from April 20 to August 20, 1930 and was filmed in seven states. The film was shot in an early widescreen process called 70 mm Grandeur film, which was first used in the film Fox Movietone Follies of 1929. Grandeur was used by the Fox Film Corporation for a handful of films released in 1929 and 1930, of which The Big Trail was the last. Grandeur proved financially unviable..."

 The Covered Wagon (1923), directed by James Cruze. One of the most influential westerns, The Covered Wagon is impressive in scope and the grandeur of the plains. The sheer number of Conestoga wagons, horses, cattle, bulls, people that fill the screen is spectacular. The story has two wagon trains converging at Westport Landing (Kansas City) in May 1848 and embarking on a journey to Oregon, a journey that finds hardship and conflict along the way. Near the end, the wagons meet a man who announces that gold has been found in “Californy” and this announcement complicates things further. If all this – the river crossing, the attack by Natives, the evening music and dance, the snowfall, the drinking bout and play on William Tell – were not enough, we have the love triangle: Sam Woodhull (Alan Hale), Will Banion (J Warren Kerrigan), and Molly Wingate (Lois Wilson). The Native people do not, as you would expect from a film of this time, have much to do beyond gesture excitedly and serve to register the dangers of the wilderness, but it is noteworthy that Native people appear to be playing the roles, for the most part, of Native people. The film does have one insistent symbol, not a gun nor a knife nor a rope, but a plough. The plough represents order and, dare I say, civilization. The weapons of conflict will be, must be, fashioned into ploughshares. As I say above, this is an influential western with impressive camera work and grand vistas. It opened the way for John Ford’s The Iron Horse that appeared the following year. Finally, I give a nod to the tobacco-chewing kid with the banjo; he plays a more important role in the action than you might, at first, think he will.

 January is Western Film Month here. I will post quite a few brief notices of westerns.

Bucking Broadway (1917), directed by John Ford. This early Ford film is a revelation. It is a comedy-romance western that shows Ford beginning to find his style. Ford signatures such as beautiful landscapes, shots through doorways, male sentimentality, older man/younger man relationships, men in groups working together, and high concept brawls appear. Harry Carey as Cheyenne Harry gives a stalwart performance. The villain is suitably oily. We have early examples of cross-cutting such as in the scene in which Harry sets out to buy a new suit cut with the scene in which the city slicker sets out to seduce the fair maiden, Molly Malone (Helen Clayton). We also have an early use of back projection when Harry rides his horse and catches the moving train. The sequence in the Cosmopolitan Hotel at the end is a hoot, outdoing the hijinks of the Keystone Cops by a long shot. The balcony has layers like the decks on a luxury liner. The woman in the hotel who begins to con Harry proves to be more interesting than she first appears. This is a fine film and, should you be interested, you can find an excellent copy of it on YouTube.  Oh, and the film is a snappy 53 minutes.

The Prairie Pirate (1925), directed by Edmund Mortimer. Forget the plot holes, this is an amazing film for 1925. The opening sequence with the sister of our protagonist threatened with rape by a gang of villains headed by the oily Aguilar (Fred Kohler) is harrowing. They break into her house; she shoots one member of the gang and then flees to the cellar, Aguilar lights a smoke, goes to the cellar and discovers the woman has killed herself rather than be defiled. Strong stuff. The woman’s brother, Brian Delaney (Harry Carey) returns home to find his siter dead and his house wrecked. Of course, he sets out on revenge, taking the persona of the Yellow Seal, a bandit dressed in black, with a black mask, who rides a white horse (shades of the Durango Kid). The rest of the film cannot match the opening, but it does offer a rousing, if predictable, series of actions with riders galloping here and there, a saloon with gambling and cheating and a sneaky owner who wishes to marry the heroine of the piece, Teresa Esteban (Trilby Clark). Harry Carey, in the character of Brian is an aw-shucks kind of fellow, and in the character of the Yellow Seal he mounts his horse and rides with the best of them. I know, you are wondering why he has the sobriquet The Yellow Seal. Well, he leaves a small yellow seal at the scene of his robberies. Don’t ask me why he does this, because I have no idea. Edmund Mortimer made a few films with Harry Carey and a couple with Buck Jones. He also made the 1923 version of The Wolf Man, with John Gilbert.

Hop-a-long Cassidy (1935), directed by Howard Bretherton. This is the first of Paramount’s Hopalong Cassidy films, the one in which he acquires his sobriquet. Hoppy first appears high on a ridge seemingly far away from three riders down below, one of whom threatens to pull a gun on the others. From high on the ridge, Hoppy fires his pistol and shoots the gun from the villain’s hand. Then he rides down the precipitous hill. This is Hoppy’s entrance, and it announces a hero capable of impossible feats, a hero of fantasy. The film has to do with cattle thieves stealing from two ranchers and in the process pitting the two ranchers against each other. One of these ranchers is Buck Peters who owns the Bar-20. Buck is played by Charles Middleton, best known for his role as The Merciless Emperor Ming in the Flash Gordon serials. Anyway, Hoppy catches a slug in the leg and consequently he has to hop about for a while, thus acquiring the name Hopalong. George (not yet Gabby) Hayes turns up as Uncle Ben, an old friend of Hoppy’s who provides the film’s comic relief and also its moment of sadness. We also have the hot-head youngster played by Jimmy Ellison. In other words, the film has all the ingredients of of the many Hoppy films to follow, including Red Connors (Frank McGlynn) who is a mainstay of the Hopalong Cassidy television series some fifteen years and more later. In the TV show, Red Connors is played by Edgar Buchanan. Anyway, for Hoppy fans, this first entry in the series will prove satisfying and fun.