Movie review - "The Spoilers" (1942) **** (rewatching - warning: spoilers)

 Much better than the 1930. Much clearer. Better dialogue. Acting. The lot. Okay the blackface scene isn't great - Wayne putting on boot polish to rob a bank.

But the other stuff is good. The set. John Wayne young and sexy playing off against Marlene Dietrich. Harry Carey, who I expected to die. Richard Barthemless shines as Dietrich's offsider. Randolph Scott, firm and tough, a surprise villain. Margaret Linsday lots of fun.

Everyone wants to have sex in this. Dietrich and Linsday want to have sex with Wayne. Wayne wants to have sex with Dietrich and Lindsay. Barthemless and Scott want to have sex with Dietrich. Dietrich wouldn't mind having sex with Scott.

Movie review - "The Spoilers" (1930) ** (warning: spoilers)

 First sound version of the famous tale. Not very widely seen. Not bad. Confusing. Gary Cooper has youthful charisma. He still plays a sook when he thinks a woman has betrayed him.

Cooper aside lacks stay power - Kay Johnson is a bland heroine, Betty Compson a dull saloon gal, William Boyd a bland baddie. The death of Cooper's friend had an impact. The brawl at the end is fine.

Director Edwin Carewe doesn't do much of a job. The tension going to sound is an issue but the movie didn't have to be as confusing as it was.

Movie review - "McCabe & Mrs Miller" (1971) ****1/2

 In many ways a traditional Western - a gunslinger hero who stands up to bullies, a hooker with a heart of gold, three badmen coming into town in high noon, the gunslinger kills them all, brothel and mining, the baddies are a mining company, the slimy saloon owner.

It does provide a fresh take - the gunslinger is blustery and spends the last half trying to avoid a fight, the hooker is mercenary and the gunslinger always has to pay her (and she's hooked on opium), it's set in the snow, the mining company sends some harrassed middle tier executives.

It's beautifully shot and lit (it takes some getting used to but is worth it), the Leonard Cohen songs work a treat. The villains are superb - especially the imposing Brit (what a baddie!) and the psychotic kid who wastes Keith Carradine for no reason (the "half breed" doesn't get a showy moment).

It takes a while - two hours - but works on it's own terms. By making a genre piece Altman is restrained - he can bring his magic to an existing form.

My favourite Western sub genres

Time for a pointless film buff top ten - my favourite Western sub genres:

1) Northerns

I classify these as “westerns set in the snow” - there are two main types of these (sub genre of sub genre) - Mountie films set in Canada (eg Death Hunt, The Wild North) and films set in the Alaskan Gold Rush (eg North to Alaska, The Spoilers, Call of the Wild).

I like the latter (I love Canada but Mounties are always dull on screen ) ... always stories set in mud splattered towns with brawls and brothels ... it’s a shame the Oz gold rush never produced a film as fun as North to Alaska

2) Meat pie Westerns

Westerns set in Australia. Bizarrely there are three main sub genres of these.

a) English films made here - eg The Overlanders,

b) Hollywood film made here - pretty much all underwhelming (Quigley Down Under, The Kangaroo Kid) though some are fun (eg Rangle River, the TV series Whiplash)

c) Australian made movies - The Man from Snowy River most notably. But also Raw Deal and TV series like Cash and Company.
 
There were also random off shoots - a Japanese Western filmed here (The Drifting Avenger), a Christian themed western (Shadow of the Boomerang).
 
 Bushranging films are their own subgenre.
 
Best of these? Overlanders and Snowy River are both lot of fun, though I have a soft spot for Raw Deal, too.

3) Southerns. These are Westerns set in the Deep South pre civil war. Quentin Tarantino coined the phrase I believe for Django Unchained (2012)... there were also Skin Game (1971), The Legend of N*gger Charlie (1972), The Soul of N*gger Charley (1973) and... not much else. Westerns tended to shine away from slavery unless in a Civil War context...

Most Westerns set in this place and time basically ignore it like Distant Drums (1951) and The Iron Mistress (1952) (which has a great knife fight)...

I differentiate these from melodramas set during the slave owning past like Mandingo, The Foxes of Harrow and Gone with the Wind.
 

4) Westerns about the French intervention in Mexico.

There’s a whole bunch of westerns where the hero winds up in a shoot out against ... the French. Because in the 1860s the French Invaded México put on a puppet emperor and then saw the whole thing go to hell. For a strict biographical treatment see Juárez (1939) - for Westerns there’s Vera Cruz (1954), Major Dundee (1965), The Undefeated (1969).

5) South African Westerns.

Where the prairie was substituted by the veldt.... There are two main types of these

a) British films with British stars - Diamond City (1949) (David Farrar, Diana Dors), The Adventurers (1951) (Jim Hawkins), The Heillions (1962) (Richard Todd)... the sort of movie where the reviews would invariably say "the best thing is the scenery"

b) local South African films such as Five Fingers for Marseilles (2014), Umbango (1986)

There was also the odd American financed film such as The Jackals (1967)

6) 18th century ones where everyone wears funny hats i.e. the pre revolutionary period.

These have such a different feel I hesitate to call them Westerns - for one thing they mostly take place in the East! But they do have a lot of the same tropes eg set on a frontier, forts, sieges, Indians...

The best known are The Last of the Mohicans adaptations, but there's also films like Drums Along the Mohawk, ones starring Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett, Northwest Passage (1940), Unconquered (1947), Many Rivers to Cross (1955).

The unifying elements seem to be (a) avoidance of tackling slavery (b) funny hats. Seriously, there's a lot of funny hats.

7) Pancho Villa era Westerns.

The US West was "won" by the 1890s but it was still game on down in Mexico until World War One... you had Pancho Villa invading the US, Zapata, the Revolution, Germans trying to whip up a Mexican invasion of Mexico. It resulted in some great films - The Wild Bunch (1969), Duck You Sucker (1971), The Professionals (1966) and Viva Villa (1934) notably - and not so great films - a lot of Wild Bunch rip offs - as well as a heap of Mexican and spaghetti Westerns and the Rod Taylor TV series Bearcats.

They could be summarised as "Westerns with cars in them".

8) Isolated white man films.

That description isn't a great one, sorry, but it's the best I can think of - films about Westerners (invariably white men) who are cut off from their society and hang around Indians. They tend to be films about

a) mountain men - The Mountain Men (1980), Jeremiah Johnson (1972)

b) trappers - The Revenant (2015), Man in the Wilderness (1971)


c) men-adopted-by-the-Indians films - The Man Called Horse (1970), Run for the Arrow (1957)
 
These films share many things in common - the Indians outnumber the whites, the heroes love and lose a Indian girlfriend, they emphasise gore and honour and feature a lot of battling against the elements.
 
There have been films about women who are abducted by Indians bt they tend to focus on the white men who rescue them (eg The Searchers).

9) Comedy westerns.

 I read somewhere that Blazing Saddles (1974) killed the Western because once you know what the tropes were you couldn't enjoy it anymore... I don't think that's true, in part because there had been plenty of comic Westerns beforehand, notably The Paleface (1948), Alias Jesse James (1959), Support Your Local Sheriff (1969) and Destry Rides Again (1939).

I should add though that when things gone wrong on a comedy Western, they are the hardest films of them all to sit through eg Lightning Jack.

10) Space Westerns!

Westerns were replaced in the 70s by a combination of cop films and sci fi movies... I actually didn't like westerns that much but I loved anything like a Western in space (lasers, loners, a frontier, a scene with a bar in it) - Star Wars of course but also Battle Beyond the Stars, Outland, Starcrash, Space Raiders, Battlestar Galactica... Maybe not Moon Zero Two

Movie review - "North to Alaska" (1960) **** (re-viewing)

Maybe four stars is too much but re-watching this film - I've seen it several times - I was struck by how much I like it. So many of the pleasures you simply don't get any more - John Wayne in the lead, Charles Feldman's mistress Capucine knocking it out of the park as his co star, Fabian in support, a jaunty ballad-pop theme tune.

Apparently the movie was greatly rewritten as it went along by Henry Hathaway supervising. Someone knew writing though because it does hang together in part because there is decent central conflict - Wayne and Stewart Granger are partners in Alaska circa 1906 who've struck it rich, Wayne goes to Seattle to collect Granger's fiance, finds she's gotten married to someone else so he brings back a prostitute, Capucine. Capucine thinks Wayne wants her and by the time she finds out the truth she's fallen for her - but Wayne doesn't want to be tied down.

So you've got good central conflict and decent characters - a miner who won't be married, and a prostitute who wants him. That's a juicy central dramatic situation. They complicate it in decent ways - there are claim jumpers after Wayne's mine, Granger falls for Capucine, so does Granger's kid brother Fabian, a conman Ernic Kovacs is after the mine, drunken Mickey Shaugnessy used to own the minr. Stories dovetail neatly - for instance Capucine is an ex of Kovacs.

It goes for two hours and really could have been cut - the last half hour the conflict is contrived as they struggle to find ways to keep Wayne and Capucine apart. I also think the sequence where Granger and Capucine are trying to make Wayne jealous drags. They probably wanted to give Granger something to do - it's not much of a part. However, he is a believable miner and it's nice that this role was played by someone with charisma and presence, he gives it heft.

Kovacs is a strong antagonist - he's clever and sly. Wayne is in wonderful form - big, warm, charismatic, doing an amusing slow burn, jealous, charming It's one of his likeable performances.

It's also one of Fabian's best efforts. The role suits him like a glove - not too much pressure, but still with a little meat. It's not very convincing that he and Granger are brothers, and his haircut feels 1960 rather than 1906 but he gets to play a 17 year old and has a definite character - kid who wants to be an adult, who falls for Capucine and tries to seduce her (a long scene and he holds his own). He sings a song "If You Only Knew", which is a soft ballad - he wasn't bad at these eg "This Friendly World" from Hound Dog Man. He's very likeable.

The real surprise packet though is Capucine. A bit of a joke at the time because she was am oderl turned actress and mistress of Charles Feldman, she's a delight - perfectly cast (as a French prostitute), elegant, beautiful, lovely. She believably falls in love with Wayne, is very sweet - the first third of the film, their courtship in Seattle, is among the best bit of the movie. She's good at comedy - very funny being seduced by Fabian and later taking part in the brawl at the end. This is important too because the movie is her character's story as much as Wayne's - she drives the second half of the movie, pursuing Wayne.

The scenary is spectacular and the production design a delight - beaches, steamers, muddy roads, bordellos, lumberjack lunches, mines. I have a soft spot for "Northerns" set during the Alaskan gold rush and this film really goes for it.

It's a charming, sweet movie  with a jaunty title track. I recognise I may be biased because I saw this film as a kid when highly formative.

(I could have done without the wacky sound effects during the fight scenes eg birds tweeting when someone gets punched.)

Movie review - "Ice Palace" (1960) **

A big flop in its day despite Edna Ferber's solid track record and it's not hard to see why. Giant was such a big hit you wonder why they didn't study that more closely - the 1960 adaptation of Cimarron made similar errors.

Giant focused strongly on Elizabeth Taylor's journey, and her relationship with Rock Hudson and James Dean. That was the core of that film.

This doesn't seem to have a core. I guess it kind of has one in the relationship between Richard Burton and Robert Ryan. Burton is a sulky World War One veteran who can't get a job in Seattle so he winds up in Alaska. Ryan picks him up out of the ocean and they become partners. Ryan seems to kind of fall in love with him, as per the fashion of many films of the time, but the friendship flounders when Burton falls for Ryan's fiancee, Carolyn Jones.

The film pulls its punches on the drama though - Jones loves Burton and he loves her but he goes off and marries rich Martha Hyer. Jones gets upset, Ryan realises they're in love, and Ryan goes and sooks off. Jones doesn't get with Burton she kind of hangs around up the street. Hyer and Burton have an unhappy marriage but it's hard to care; Ryan goes and lives with the eskimos and has a kid with an eskimo woman who has no lines and dies in childbirth (this was typical of "liberal" Hollywood films of the time).

Hyer and Burton's kid grows up to be Shirley Knight, and Ryan's kid grows up to be Steve Harris and they wind up falling in love and having a kid before both conveniently dying. Their kid is Diane McBain, whose character apparently was the lead of the novel, but only appears in the last half hour here. She has a romance with Ray Danton, Burton's lawyer, during a very dull plot about Alaska trying to get statehood.

It just doesn't work. Ryan's character is meant to be moral and good but is just annoying,crapping on about Alaska and how much he hates Burton. Because Burton fell for his girl (they never did anything) and introduced fishing traps? I think Burton is meant to be racist in a way because he makes cracks about Ryans half breed kid, but early on in the film he sticks up for Chinese George Takei.

There is some sort of theme about contributing to Alaska versus taking, which is kind of interesting, but it isn't dramatised.

Really the film should've been about Carolyn Jones' character - an Alaska pioneer in love with two men, who tries to do the right thing, and raises women. It needed to be a female orientated story and have a star in this role - Jones is a good actor but not a star.

Richard Burton isn't comfortably cast as an American. Three generations of women are played by blondes who look the same and don't have differentiating characteristics: Heyer, Knight, McBain.

By the end it's hard to care.

But you now, I've got to say I didn't mind it that much, because my expectations were so low. It's an old fashioned melodrama with lots of story. I enjoyed the colour and the shots of Alaska - and the Alaskan setting is a bit of a novelty.

Movie review - "Those Redheads from Seattle" (1953) **1/2

Pine Thomas were known for their action films but decided to try a musical here - perhaps because they had a good relationship with former song and dance man John Payne, as well as Rhonda Fleming, who had been in Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court.

Payne dropped out and was replaced by Gene Barry who is okay. Fleming is so-so as well - she looks great in colour but isn't that much of a musical star (or even actor).

However the support cast of this is strong. Guy Mitchell is someone I have never heard of - a popular singer - he has an easy disposition and nice voice. Agnes Moorehead is always reliable. Teresa Brewer is inexperienced dramatically but sings well. The Bell Sisters (who play other sisters) are lively. Jean Parker is back in a support role.

It's got pep, is colourful, and has a great central idea - it's about a widow and her four daughters who wind up in Alaska. I'm partial to redheads and to "Northerns" so I guess I'm biased but it was lively, the tunes were fine. For musical neophytes, Pine-Thomas did a good job.

There are story problems. It wastes too much time with the girls not knowing the dad is dead - why not tell them straight up? They could still come to Alaska. It just results in these unpleasant "they don't know yet" moments which don't add to the story. It takes far too long for the girls to get active trying to make money, going into singing and running a newspaper etc - that should've been the core of it. The plot about who killed the girl's dad seems to be thrown on and the girls should've been involved in it -say one of the sisters falls for the killer or something, or is kidnapped by him. As it is, Barry just takes off to participate in his own action sequence without any redheads.

Even though it's a female centric story the core of it is still two rivals for the one person - though in this case it's two sisters (Fleming, Brewer) in love with a guy (Barry).

So a flawed film but quite fun.

Movie review - "The Hateful Eight" (2016) *** (warning: spoilers)

Tarantino has called this a "northern" because it's a Western set in the snow. I'd argue that really it's a Western set in the snow - Northerns being a specific sub genre of the Western set in Alaska (The Spoilers, North to Alaska, The Far Country, Call of the Wild) or Canada (mountie movies).

It's also a siege movie, in a way - a bunch of desperadoes holed up in a haberdashery during a blizzard - which could easily be adapted into a play. It reminded me of Reservoir Dogs (this too has Michael Madsen and Tim Roth in the cast).

Maybe it should have been a play - though it is cinematically interesting with its 70 mm cinematography and lush production design and movie stars. What it doesn't need to be is three hours long. Scenes drag on; dialogue is repeated by characters several times; exposition is repeated. The script needed a good edit. But I guess who was going to convince Tarantino of that.

He's given the Sergio Leone treatment to what is in its heart of hearts a good taunt Raoul Walsh B movie. There's a great cast of B movie stars - I don't use "B movie stars" in a derogatory sense... I mean the modern day equivalent of say Howard Duff and Edmund O'Brien: Samuel L Jackson and Kurt Russell as rival bounty hunters, Jennifer Jason Leigh as a femme fetale, Tim Roth and Michael Madsen as mysterious gun men, Walton Goggins as a redneck, Demian Bichir as a handyman, Bruce Dern as a Southern general.

The acting is very strong as usual in a Tarantino picture and all the leads get a chance to shine. Roth's humour was particularly enjoyable. Jackson gets perhaps the most shocking moment - describing to Dern what he made Dern's son do.

The most depressing sequence is the flashback where a gang wipe out a bunch of innocent people. We see one big for mercy before being shot; another bleeding to death pleading with their eyes before being shot. They are nice people too - it's not like seeing the leads be killed (they all play ruthless people who live life according to tough rules); they are just people in the wrong place at the wrong time. Good on Tarantino for conveying the horror but it also makes it really depressing. 

And he seems to really enjoy putting in scenes where people punch and abuse Jennifer Jason Leigh - I mean there's a LOT of moments where that happens. (While Tarantino is down with the hard luck black men had during this time in history he seems to have nil sympathy/empathy for what women had to put up with during this time.)

Movie review - "Rose Marie" (1936) ***

I didn't mind this Nelson Eddy-Jeanette MacDonald starrer, once I got used to the ridiculous of the concept. It helped this had a solid simple basic story full of conflict: opera star Jeanette heads off for the Canadian wilds in order to rescue her criminal brother and is accompanied by mountie Nelson Eddy.

Most of the running time consists of a road trip (well, mountain trip) between Eddy and MacDonald, leading to expected adventures: falling in the river, singing, squabbling, fish out of water comedy, him handing her clothes in her tent when she's had a bath and is flashing bare shoulders (an unexpectedly hot scene).

Eddy is - surprise - stiff and awkward but that suits playing a mountie and he teams well with Jeanette. (They apparently had an affair during production; if so it paid off because there's an earthiness to their chemistry.) There's a lot of warbling including the famous "Indian Love Call'.

James Stewart steals the film in a brief appearance as MacDonald's brother. His plot is resolved very abruptly - only two scenes really. But I guess what the public wanted was Jeanette and Nelson and that Canadian alpine scenery.

Movie review - "Call of the Wild" (1935) ***1/2 (warning: spoilers)

Jack London's classic tale about Buck the wonder dog has been completely turned on its head and become a Clark Gable vehicle - and you know something? It actually works. Gable is completely at home playing Jack Thornton in the snowy north with Jack Oakie doing some amiable sidekick stuff and Loretta Young being beautiful in her fur. 

Gable and Young make a strong couple - him manly and she lady like - and of course there's the extra appeal knowing that in real life they did have an affair resulting in Young having a kid out of wedlock and covering it up as an "adopted" child. (Though apparently sexual assault was involved.)

I enjoyed Reginald Owen as the villain - a seemingly pompous English idiot who is actually quite scary - and the stuff from the novel that is used (eg Buck winning a dog sled competition) is effective. 

The movie does lose points by having Gable so passive at the end when the baddies come in and try to take his gold (they leave him and Young there and only get their just desserts by capsizing in the canoe and drowning... which feels like deux ex machina cheating). But I liked it that Young's husband turns up at the end meaning she and Gable can't be together, which gives the movie romantic poignancy. It's good solid Clarke Gable-William Wellman stuff that holds up well.

Movie review - "Susannah of the Mounties" (1939) ***

Kids who were the sole survivor of an Indian massacre were an old Western standby so in a way its kind of surprising it took 20th Century Fox a while to get around to using that as a plot for a Shirley Temple film. Or maybe not... it does mean this is a more serious vehicle for the moppet, beginning with her severely traumatised after her family and friends have been wiped out.

But this enables her to be an orphan and charm a military outpost, something she was very experienced at doing. For variety it's set in Canada and the cowboys are mounties; there is Randolph Scott wearing a mustache that makes him look really old as the main mountie dude, whom Temple kind of seems romantically keen on; a young Indian is held hostage for Shirley to have tween urst with; Margaret Lockwood (looking not very comfortable) pops up as Scott's love interest, who Temple spends most of her time trying to separate; the Indians are extremely whimpy except Victor Jory and a few firebrands; Shirley puts her head into the lion's den by visiting the Indian camp at the end to save the day. Shirley also takes a few drags on a peace pipe and gets a head ache.

There are many echoes of Wee Willie Winkie; it isn't as good but there's action and novelty.

Movie review - "The Far Country" (1952) ***

I love Northerns - tales of the Alaskan gold rush; they always look terrific with mountains and snow in the background, and saloons, boots and muddy streets. 

This is one of those James Stewart-Anthony Mann stories with Stewart as a tough guy who heads to Alaska and runs afoul of a corrupt smiling Judge (John McIntire). Borden Chase's script is full of life and incident, although it does kind of feel made up as it goes along - characters keep coming and going, stories stop and start (there's the judge, the women, crossing the mountains, the fate of a small town).

There's a surprisingly strong female presence - Stewart is panted after by shady saloon owner Ruth Roman and spitfire French Canadian Corinne Calvet (neither really up to their parts) plus some blousy women who live in an Alaskan town; McIntire's performance could have been bigger but there are some choice supporting actors including ever reliable Walter Brennan and Jack Elam. Brennan has a great death scene - there's some expert Mann action here. 

It's not a classic (the "psychological study" basically consists of Stewart deciding to put his gun on) but it's highly enjoyable.

Movie review - "Northwest Mounted Police" (1940) **

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.

Movie review - "The Spoilers" (1955) **1/2

I'm partial to "Northerns", tales of gold in Alaska at the turn of the century - they always look so good and have such colourful characters. This is based on a much filmed novel which has the benefit of colour photography but lacks star power.

Jeff Chandler is effective as the gold miner fighting for his claim (surely this influenced North to Alaska) but Anne Baxter doesn't look very comfortable as a saloon singer, the part so memorably essayed by Marlene Dietrich (NB in Universal's defence I can't think who else they might have been able to afford who would have been good - Maureen O'Hara no, Yvonne de Carlo maybe); Rory Calhoun is too lightweight to be Chandler's rival - Calhoun never really made it as a leading man, and was more effective as an oily false love interest (Ray Danton plays that here - I got him and Calhoun confused).

Still there's plenty of action and scenes in saloons, including a final brawl, and some decent character actors. The basic story isn't bad - very adaptable to Australian gold fields - even if it does endorse the American "you can't trust the government" mantra.

Movie review – “Spawn of the North” (1938) ***

Howard Hawks wasn’t the only director who went in for homoerotic bromance – here we have best friends George Raft and Henry Fonda making eyes at one another in Alaska for Henry Hathaway. They are fisherman, with Raft tempted to dodgy pirating tactics, bringing him into conflict with straight arrow Fonda. This causes much anguish on both their parts, particularly Fonda. The look on Fonda's face after he shoots Raft - dude, the guy deserved it. He becomes less interested in Louise Platt as it goes on. Platt never struck me as someone who had the glamour to be a female lead - she's easily outshone by Dorothy Lamour, who is lovely and touching as the girl with a yen for Raft.

This has a great setting – seaside fishing town, piers and bars, Indians doing soft, chants – augmented by good location footage. Fonda and Raft give good performances (well, Raft is good by Raft standards which aren't as high as Fonda's), but they don't have great chemistry as friends - you just don't believe they'd be mates in the way you would say Fonda and James Stewart, or Raft and Humphrey Bogart. 

There is some bright dialogue, too much comic business involving a seal and the story gets sillier as it goes on (the goodies are pretty full on vigilantes). It's reminiscent in a way of Reap the Wild Wind -a good fisherman and a bad one. That had the two guys clashing over the same girl - they should have done that here, and for a time it seems they're going to, but they pull back, and I think it hurt the movie.

Radio review – Lux – “Northwest Frontier” (1942) *1/2

The Cecil B de Mille film was listed by Harry Medved as one of the 50th worst films of all time, which is a little harsh, but it wasn’t that good – nor is this radio version. The unusual setting gives it novelty – Riel’s Rebellion in 19th century Canada – but too much time is spent on Gary Cooper, in one of his most irritating aw-shucks performances, as a Texas Ranger pursuing a bandit. There are subplots involving his dopey romance with Madeleine Carroll (awful dialogue), Carrol’s cowardly boyfriend and his dodgy lover. The acting from the cast is either stiff or over the top and it’s fairly laughable. Poor Canada.

Movie review – A&C #30 - “Lost in Alaska” (1952) **1/2

Abbbott and Costello are firemen who fish Tom Ewell out of the water when he tries to kill himself. They are accused of his murder and wind up following him to Alaska where lots of people want to shoot Ewell and there’s gold… it sounds convoluted and it is convoluted. But for all that this isn’t a bad Abbott and Costello and it’s fun to see them running around in the ice, dealing with Eskimos and seals. 

There’s a quite enjoyable air of darkness about much of the humour – suicidal Ewell and everyone conniving over getting gold, including our heroes; and the female lead (Mitzi Green) is quite an interesting character – a wise lounge singer, she finds Ewell annoying but doesn’t want him dead. (She also sings a decent number, ‘It’s Hot Time in the Igloo Tonight’ - there's also a dance number with eskimos jumping around.)

Abbott wears a moustache in this one, perhaps to make him seem younger, which is does – it also makes him seem a bit sinister. There are quite a few songs and even a dance number involving Eskimos. I enjoyed the climax, where our duo fight off the baddies with a variety of weapons… including frozen fish! Costello also throws a boomerang – which knocks himself out. The ending, with gold one on side of a crevasse and people on the other, seems to borrow from Road to Utopia.

Movie review – Road #4 – “Road to Utopia” (1945) ***1/2

The Road movies were always pretty jokey from the beginning, but things went up a notch with Road to Morocco, then the extra mile with this one. It starts with a joking introduction by Robert Bechley, then cuts to an elderly Hope and Lamour living together; they are visited by Bing Crosby, at which points it flashes back to the 1890s, the period so well covered by Mae West.

“Utopia” is gold rush Alaska, where Bing and Bob wind up looking for their fortune. During the course of their adventures they sing songs which refer to their star personas, run into Santa, have a bit part actor from another movie walk through their movie, make gags about the censors, have Robert Benchley occasionally make comments, refer to the music score during a romantic scene, etc etc.

The stars are in delightful form and the gags are very strong; the plot has Bing and Bob be confused for some killers and get involved with shenanigans concerning a map. (Indeed the last portion of the film it gets quite plotty).

Risque ending where Lamour and Hope’s kid is revealed to look just like Crosby.

Movie review – Ladd #28 - “Saskatchewan” (1954) **1/2

Try saying the title three times quickly. Canada’s most exotic-sounding state is the inspiration behind this colourful adventure, which benefits from some stunning location work and pretty visuals of mounties set against green trees. Alan Ladd made it during his 18 month sojourn outside the US in order to qualify for tax exemption (he also shot three films for Warwick Productions in England, but Saskatchewan was made for Universal). Ladd plays a mountie, of course – though this reveal is delayed until the eleventh minute and he spends some time in buckskins.

The film is set in 1877 with the mounties having to deal with Crazy Horse and his gang of Sioux who have crossed the border after fighting with Custer and are threatening to stir up the local Cree Indians. Because this was post-Broken Arrow Hollywood, Ladd has a right-on attitude towards Indians – he clashes with his stuffy new English commander and a nasty US marshall over Ladd’s more tolerant attitudes towards them, and Ladd was raised by Indians and is blood brother to a Cree Indian (Jay Silverheels, though in the opening sequence Ladd is still shown to outshoot and outrace said blood brother).

Also the motivations for the Indian rising is sympathetically depicted – the government take the guns of the Cree away, meaning they can not hunt, and driving them into the arms of the Sioux. (Indeed there is a slight anti-American flavour to the story – the American US marshall character is a nasty piece of work, and the Canadian treatment of Cree Indians is held up several times as superior to American treatment of the Sioux).

Most of the plot concerns a bunch of mounties travelling through hostile country escorting a prisoner. Ladd ends up leading a mutiny against his cowardly English commander but that’s resolved quite politely and most of the white man conflict involves the US marshal being nasty, which gets tiresome after a while.

Sometimes you feel as though the filmmakers thought “right we’ve got these splendid visuals of red coats against green tree backdrops we don’t really need much of a story”. I suppose they were right. There is some okay action – a few attacks, a chase on canoes reminiscent of the later Last of the Mohicians. The mounties and the Crees unite at the end to defeat the Sioux – its hard to feel overly roused.

Shelley Winters is an odd choice for romantic lead (the prisoner); she doesn’t quite work with her sing-song character actor voice. Because it’s set in Canada there’s an inevitable whisky-drinking French Canadian trapper as comic relief.

Movie review – Errol #26 - Northern Pursuit (1943) **1/2

Any movie where Errol Flynn plays a mountie fighting Nazis in snowy Canada during WW2 is automatically going to be fun but this would be one of Errol’s lesser war films. It is closer to the silliness of Desperate Journey rather than his more serious pieces. Julie Bishop is a pretty bland leading lady but the main problem is the script, which takes forever to get going (Nazis land in Canada, Errol busts them, Errol pretends to be a Nazi to find out what Nazis are up to). It makes Errol passive most of the time – even when he goes undercover the Nazis are never really fooled by him, and he spends most of the film just watching what the Nazis did. Only at the end does he kick butt.

This is one of those war films were the most interesting and compelling characters are the Nazis – Helmut Dantine and brave and clever and runs around enemy territory doing his mission. That’s like the Errol Flynn role. It’s clear from this movie the only reason we beat the Nazis was that they kept shooting their own men all the time.