Dodge City (1939)

Great visuals, story delivers no surprises

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

. . . in this yarn concocted by the GONE WITH THE WIND gang during their lunch breaks. Since Clark Gable was too lazy to "double dip" during his WIND shoot, Warner Bros. cast Errol Flynn to collaborate with WINDERS Olivia DeHavilland, Victor Jory, and Max Steiner. (As Ms. DeHavilland observed, "If you've seen one mustache, you've seen them all.") In DODGE CITY's fractured history, Flynn's Men of Dixie rampage across the North, pillaging bars and fighting against the Death Penalty. These carpetbaggers weasel their way into political power, instituting ruinous tax-and-spend policies which drive widows out of their homes and into the streets. This scalawag mob tramples citizens' Second Amendment Rights, transforming an Open Carry city into what even Flynn's chief henchman labels as "Sissy Town." Our beloved fifty dollar bill Civil War hero Grant morphs here into a stuttering defense lawyer, and fire-trap trains struggle to top 20 mph. Loose women marry the killers of their siblings, as America gets a taste of life under a suddenly victorious Confederacy.

Errol Flynn takes the job of sheriff to clean up lawless Dodge City. Bad guy Bruce Cabot has a thing or two to say about that. Flynn's great in his first western. Olivia de Havilland is the pretty love interest. Ann Sheridan has a surprisingly small part (considering the billing) as a dance hall girl who sings some songs. Alan Hale and Guinn Williams play Flynn's buddies. Terrific WB supporting cast includes some of the greats like Victor Jory, Henry O'Neill, Frank McHugh, John Litel, and Henry Travers. Also features Bobs Watson, a kid actor who specialized in two things: being adorable and crying on cue. Fairly routine western but very well-made in good old Technicolor. Love the Pure Prairie League!

I don't recommend this movie to anyone who isn't a rabid Errol Flynn fan. From my point of view, he's too suave and urbane to qualify as a Western hero. I understand he ended up making eight Westerns. I can't say I'm looking forward to watching them, although I'm holding out a little hope for "They Died With Their Boots On". The movie has a good rep and George Custer sounds like a more suitable role for Flynn. We'll see. It's hard to come up with a list of likes and dislikes for this film. It was so bland and cookie cutter, it didn't elicit much reaction either way. I gave it a three out of 10 in my IMDb and it only scored seven points in my ranking system, a bad score. Here's what I liked: There was a very large and well filmed barroom brawl. This is a stock Western cliché that doesn't really interest me much, but this was one of the better ones I can remember. I especially liked it because it took place between Union and Confederate Civil War veterans. I don't know much about the history of color movies, but this must have been an early one. Not very impressive 70 years later , but it must have been a big deal back in its own day. I'm at a loss really to say anything more positive about this film On the negative side: Like I mentioned above, I just didn't buy Flynn as a gunfighter hero. I'm not sure why his character wasn't Wyatt Earp. I'm not an Earp historical expert, but it seemed to me this was the stock "Wyatt Earp cleans up Dodge" narrative, just with a different guy. Don't know why they did that. The written preludes to these 1930's movies crack me up. Was it that audiences were so accustomed to the silent era that they were afraid not to let them read a little bit? As is typical in movies from this time period, the romantic subplot is stiff and corny, the soundtrack is syrupy, the villains are purely melodramatic, there is a general lack of realism.

I honestly can't believe I sat though this laughable exercise in film-making. I honestly can't think of one thing to commend it. The closest is Ann Sheridan's first stage scene and that's saying a lot considering it lasted all of a couple of minutes. The whole time I was hoping that with such accomplished thespians as Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, Ann Sheridan, Bruce Cabot, Victor Jory, Alan Hale (need I go on?), directed by Michael Curtiz no less, something, anything, would elevate this film. I guess I should have known better because with the opening sequence this one began to stink to high heaven. But I kept hoping...OK, so what's wrong with it? Well it's an encyclopedia of clichés. I suspect the writers scoured every script out there, gathered all the worn-out clichés, and used every one of them in this film. Another way to look at it: if you want to know the worst clichés in moviedom don't look any farther than "Dodge City". They're all here a-plenty. What about character development you say? Well, what about it? This movie is made up of a series of one-dimensional characters with little or no depth whose motivations don't go much beyond those of five-year olds.I could go on and on, find fault with just about every aspect of this film but you get the idea. This one was conceived and produced by five-year olds for five-year olds. Actually I can think of some five-year olds who would think it stupid so enough said.