a5c7b9f00b Jim Hawkins and Wahoo Jones are stagecoach robbers who head to Texas to find Sam McGee, their partner. Once there, low on funds, they join the Texas Rangers, come across Sam, and decide to run their game by sending Sam inside information. Meanwhile, though, in pacifying rebellious Indians, Jim and Wahoo start to take on the code of the Rangers, and the daughter of the Ranger's major sets her sights on Jim. Can there be honor among thieves, or are Jim, Wahoo, and Sam on a collision course? As a lawless frontier becomes a civilized land, which side will the boys chose? Two down-on-their-luck former outlaws volunteer to be Texas Rangers and find themselves assigned to bring in an old friend, now a notorious outlaw. All you Jack Oakie fans beware, I'm going to dump on him. Any time I see his name in the cast of characters, I think twice about watching that movie. There has to be a big-name leading man that I like enough to overcome the stupid shenanigans of Oakie. In this case, it was Fred MacMurray, of whom I am very fond. Why oh why do the heroes in the early westerns have Bozo the Clowns for partners? Gabby Hayes, Smiley Burnett, Pat Buttram, Dub Taylor, Al St. John, Fuzzy Knight, Max Terhune, Frank McHugh, Slim Pickens, Pat Brady and a score of others all set their sights on beingdumbpossible and hinder the hero inmany wayspossible. There were a few good exceptions, my favorite being Tonto of The Lone Ranger fame. In real life, would Lloyd Nolan put up with Oakie. I don't think so. The least he would have done is kick him out of the gang. Although I didn't approve of the way Nolan did in Oakie under the table, I was glad that Oakie was out of the movie, even though it was only for a short time before the ending. (See The Call of the Wild with Clark Gable if you want to see Oakie spoil another great movie). I loved the action and gunplay in this movie especially the Indian attack. Long-distance shooting with sixguns was a bit hard to take, but all the movie cowboy heroes did it. I thought the romance was particularly well done and I would have given in to Jean Parker a lot sooner than Fred did. Overall I gave this movie a 7, but it would have been an 8 if it took itself a bit more serious. I know a lot of you are going to disagree with me on the partners issue, but I like serious westerns, not comedy westerns. King Vidor was quite a director, and he managed to make a western in 1936, that is still very entertaining today. The action scenes did not yet have the technical improvements that would come in the late forties and fifties, but that is a minor detail. The three main characters, MacMurray, Jack Oakie and LLoyd Nolan are outlaws and two of them (MacMurray and Oakie) end up becoming Texas Rangers with the intention of getting information for future robberies. Nolan starts becoming famousthe "Polkadot", because he uses a mask with a polkadot pattern. It is interesting that Nolan's real name in the film is Sam Mcgee, which was also the name of one of poet Robert Service's main characters. Jean Parker is excellentAmanda, quite a woman, she is the one who chooses her man and makes the advances.
enkolicon Admin replied
373 weeks ago