Pitched as a "Scarlet Pimpernel of the South" - John Payne pretends to be on the side of the carpetbaggers during Reconstruction but is actually working to bring them down. That's not a bad idea for a Western, but Pimpernel was fun - this isn't.
In Pimpernel there was a really sharp contrast between Sir Percy's foppish character and the derring do he secretly got up to. Here Payne's "cover" persona is a hard bitten person sick of living in the past - which is actually very admirable. Also while we saw Sir Percy sneak off and rescue people, put on disguises, etc Payne just sort of sneaks around.
Okay, so I rationalised, it's more of a film noir undercover film, like T Men or something. Only we don't know Payne is working for Good until 43 minutes in.
Also I hated the people he was trying to help. I think we were meant to like them - the Southerners who want to talk about the war, the little guy who worshipped Payne, the simpering moron with doe eyes he loves (Colleen Gray, who played this role far too many times eg Kiss of Death), the bombastic preacher who criticises Payne at the sermon, the old southern gentlemen. These people were all old slave owning idiots whining for the old days. Even the Union general overseeing Payne's mission is an idiot - blabbing about Payne's identity to Willard Parker.
I was on the side of the baddies - Lyle Bettger's carpetbagger, trying to run them into the ground,and most of all Jan's Sterling reformed hooker, who is panting for Payne, wants to be known as a respectable girl, and admits she likes to get Bettger all angry and excited. This character was unexpectedly complex.
To be fair Colleen Gray's character gets a great moment where she confronts Sterling trying to get the truth out of her - she picks up a dagger and attacks her then locks her in to a room. If this film had been told from the POV of the female characters and gone all sweaty Southern melodrama it might have really worked.
So I wasn't a fan. I'm finding a lot of the bigger budgeted Pine Thomas movies didn't work - for all their skills at budgeting they didn't have what it took to graduate to the big leagues. (Or maybe it was the absence of Maxwell Shane, who didn't work on this one.)
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