Veronica Lake's career never really recovered from getting her hair cut off, so it's said - other influencing factors may be her difficult temperament, some poor films and a persona that wasn't always easily castable. But she was still busy at this stage - she'd just come off The Blue Dahlia and apparently this Western was quite popular.
Ronnie is a tough woman living on the range who is picked on by nasty tycoon Preston Foster. Her useless fiancee takes off so she hires Joel McCrea as her "ramrod". But McCrea isn't the only hero - that duty is split with Don De Fore as a ruthless, enigmatic drifter who also fights on Lake's side, and overshadows McCrea's character (even if they do make McCrea an alcoholic).
This is a story full of shades and moral ambiguities - I guess it's pretty clear that Preston Foster is a baddie but Lake isn't necessarily a goodie. She's keen to flirt with men to get them to do what she wants and gets De Fore to create a stampede so McCrea will be more on her side. She genuinely falls for McCrea but he ends up dumping her because she's a bad girl. Well, she's not really bad, I felt she just did what she had to do - but that was Hollywood during the post war years, women had to be put in their place (something similar happened in Forever Amber). As a result the movie is a bit out of kilter - you have more sympathy for Lake, who has more at stake, than McCrea, who is just a hired hand. It also might have more impact if McCrea had genuine feelings for Lake but he seems quite happy to go off with bland Arleen Whelan.
And De Fore has a great character - he's on the side of the "goodies" but he quite sadisitically goads a baddie into drawing so he can kill him. He also seems to fall in love with McCrea, as a lot of anti heroes do in Westerns, and there's a triangle with Lake. It probably would have been a better movie if they'd gotten rid of McCrea's character.
The film was directed by Andre de Toth who has a bit of a critical reputation - as a lot of B western directors seemed to at one time. This isn't perfect but it is interesting and it's fun to see Lake even if she isn't that sexy in Western garb. Great support cast too including Donald Crisp and Lloyd Bridges.
No comments:
Post a Comment