Reviewer:
Poohbah70
-
favoritefavoritefavoritefavorite -
January 8, 2020
Subject:
Richard Dix - Enjoyable Western
There is a good script with a few twists and good acting by a lot of A actors in a B western. Richard Dix becomes a marshal when elected while unconscious, who decides to clean up the town. The problem is banker Albert Dekker (Steve Barat) who is greedy and squeezing the townspeople dry. Victor Jory is particularly good a Dekker's wry sleaze of a brother with a wavering moral compass - a failure as a gambler, all he wants to do is marry Jane Wyatt, the hotel owner. Looking quite beautiful, she too gives a good performance. Rotund Eugene Palette, an unlikely cowboy, gives a good performance as a tough cattle rancher. We also get a song from Beryl Wallace (Soubrette) who, says IMDb, appeared 23 films, 9 credited, between 1934-44. However, she was famous on-stage particularly in Earl Carroll revues. She became his girlfriend, and all was well until they bot perished in a plane crash in 1949 - she was 35. Unfortunately, Willie Best, is stuck in the racial stereotype of the day: cowering, afraid of his own shadow, but knows the sound of money clinking in Dekker's hand and he comes through in the end. There's some action here and there - a bar-wrecking brawl and and some shootouts at the end. Very enjoyable.