Gary Cooper gave some irritating performances in his time but few that got on my nerves as much as his work here as Texan Ranger Dusty Rivers, who journeys north of the 49th parallel to capture a killer during Riel's Rebellion. He clashes with mountie Preston Foster (a dull actor who is particularly dull here), falls for Foster's woman Madeleine Carroll (equally dull), and helps the redcoats stop the local indians from rising up and keep the half-breeds in their place by destroying their gatling gun. In between that he does a lot of comic double takes, mugging and acting like a moron.
There's some great production design but too much of it is studio bound when you really want more location footage (there's some, just not enough). Some of the dialogue is truly atrocious, even by the standards of Cecil B de Mille films ("you're an angel in leather", "I'd look funny with leather wings"), and there's a racist subplot about poor mountie Robert Preston (Carroll's brother) being lured to treachery by temptress spitfire half-caste Paulette Goddard (over-acting madly). Those half-breed women, you just can't trust them. It also throws in a comic Scotsman got good measure (Joe Valli must have watched this with a pang in his heart.)
It does have interest because it's one of the few big budget Hollywood movies to look seriously at Canadian history (significantly, de Mille felt he still needed to have an American hero in it). I wonder what Canadians made of it... presumably they were flattered by the attention and annoyed at the excesses and inaccuracies.
This was listed by the Medved brothers in their book of the 50 worst movies of all time. Its not that bad - the production values are too high, too much is going on in the story (at least it's not boring), it's too unusual being about Canadian history. Francis McDonald offers an interesting cameo as Frances Riel, and if you're a big fan of Cooper, Carroll, Goddard, or Preston Foster (hey, you never know) you will enjoy it more than I did.
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