Olivia de Havilland's parts in Errol Flynn movies were harder than they looked - as with Errol Flynn, the best answer to people who say "oh, it's easy" is to reply "well, see what a hash other actors made of it". Olivia was pretty, spirited, innocent but with a dash of mischief (Australia's Shirley Ann Richards was similar in this regard); she often squabbled with Errol at first (this film gives her a useless brother who invites his own death partly due to Errol - she blames Errol until she comes around), tried to be brave but was about as tough, really, as wet lettuce. In Dodge City she inevitably winds up as a school teacher, but in a show of limited feminism she becomes a reporter (albeit of women's issues) and she does get involved in cleaning up the town.The big attraction of this Western is its production values: stunning colour photography, massive production values (scores of extras, trains, cattles, brawls) - the money is all there up on screen. There are also some strong action sequences (a race between a stagecoach and train, a cattle stampede, the famous brawl sequence - which is best as a spectacle rather than something genuinely exciting, but still highly enjoyable, a final battle on the fire-riddled train). The plot feels a bit ramshackle: it works, but sort of ambles around from set piece to set piece (did we need that scene on the establishment of Dodge City?, Errol doesn't put on the badge til around an hour into it, what sort of character is this Col Dodge if he lets towns named after him go to rack and ruin?).
Errol is in good form, especially with de Havilland; I buy him in a Western (as did audiences, and he would make a stack of them over the next decade, more than swashbucklers in fact), but can't help thinking his Irish adventurer character would be a little more rougish - for instance when he visits Ann Sheridan at the saloon (in the role that really got her attention on Hollywood - she has only a few lines of dialogue but gets to sing three songs and looks sensational in technicolour) you feel that some sparks could have flown.
The support cast is very good: Bruce Cabot and Victor Jory make an imposing pair of villains (love Jory's voice), Alan Hale has a hilarious scene when he vists a temperance meeting. The film isn't afraid to go for it - the annoying "cute" kid is killed off (would such a thing happen today? Probably not, they'd just injure him.) Great colourful fun; I was surprised how many scenes remained vivid in my memory from childhood: the deah of the newspaper editor, the fight on the train, the wagon train sequence with people riding on horses from one to another like public transport, the brawl.
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