Early work from Hawks has some pep and great production design plus a strong turn from Edward G Robinson but it got on my nerves. Mostly I guess because I don't like Miriam Hopkins, who I never thought was a very good actress - with those funny lips and exaggerated acting. She plays a woman who turns up in Gold Rush San Francisco to find her fiancee has been killed so she goes to work at a saloon run by Robinson.
The movie is almost half over before she runs into poet slash gold miner Joel McCrea who speaks in flourishing rambling monologues more typical of writer Ben Hecht than someone McCrea should be playing. He's later so shocked to find Hopkins works in a (gasp) saloon (that hussey!) they he gets drunk and gambles away all his money. He's meant to be the hero and Hopkins can't help falling for him. What happened to Hawks' admiration for spirited, independent women?
Robinson runs San Fran with an iron fist so some locals get together and start stringing up his henchmen (well played by Brian Donlevy)... these are also meant to be the heroes too because they are not punished. Hopkins sobs some more, Robinson gets jealous then has an unconvincing change of heart...
This simply isn't that good.
David Niven has a very small role but I blinked and missed him.
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