Three Faces West

Viennese surgeon Charles Coburn and daughter Sigrid Gurie arrive in America and are placed in a rural area of Oklahoma. They stay in a large old house with John Wayne and Spencer Charters. Pretty soon, despite Gurie's homesickness, they are involved in the social and political life in the area.

This is the famous Oklahoma dust bowl era when drought and poor cultivation practices brought about a drying up of once fertile farm land. Wayne and the other farmers do their best to save the land, but in the end except a government offer to homestead new farm land created by a dam built in Oregon, I presume on the Columbia River or one of its tributaries.

Gurie of course falls big time for the Duke. But she hears that Roland Varno who saved them from the Nazis and who she thought dead is still alive. Wayne of course leads a modern day wagon train to Oregon with automobiles instead of Conestoga wagons. He's got his own problems with Trevor Bardette, another farmer who's constantly trying to undermine his leadership.

23 years later John Wayne made McLintock which is more a serious statement of his conservative political and economic philosophy than one realizes. In Three Faces West we have him accepting a government program's help, albeit a self help type program. The film though is couched in terms good enough to satisfy any free marketeer.

One thing I could not understand. Roland Varno purportedly risked his life to save Gurie and Coburn from the Nazis. But when both of them meet up with Varno in San Francisco, he's now a big time Nazi supporter and wants to take them back to Vienna to aid in his new cause. They are taken aback and walk right out on him.

I'm somewhat taken aback myself. For the life of me I don't understand Varno's about face. The script gives us no explanation. It's a big hole in the plot.

Three Faces West also labors under the handicap of coming out in the same year as The Grapes of Wrath. A much better film about the dust bowl and its economic effects.

An American drama; A story about a Viennese surgeon and his daughter, refugees in a small North Dakota town. When the winds of the Dust Bowl threaten they are led away from doom by a farmer leader to Oregon whence he falls in love with the daughter but their future together is complicated by her past. This film's first half is tightly scripted, a contempory tale of 1930s hardship and hostile environments, a celebration of the pioneer spirit. Then comes a theme about migration and scenes become shallow as the character stories fall away, then tension with anti-Nazi propaganda, then a love triangle. This busy progression gave the film an over-engineered feel and perhaps inevitably it led toward a mediocre end. It has good production design and it is photographed handsomely. The cast performed adequately well too. John Wayne has vigour in his part while Sigrid Gurie manages with her poorly written part, but they lacked chemistry.

I feel this movie doesn't get what it deserves. Was an excellent story line. Good acting. Its got everything. Farmers work hard to make it work while being hard hit by the drought and dust storms. Two refugees, a medical doctor and his 20?-year-old daughter arrive in the USA from Nazi-annexed Austria. They eventually are convinced...??? Its got it all. Much more happens and is very exciting. In a small North Dakota farm town. Love it. John Wayne is the man in this movie. This film is not well known and hasn't got the attention as his other films but to me it is one of his best and maybe his best Drama film in the 40's. Get this one you wont be disappointed.

Three Faces West presents two stories, that of a highly respected elderly Austrian doctor (Charles Coburn) and his daughter (Sigrid Gurie) who have fled the Nazi regime and come to American seeking a place to practice medicine, and also that of a small dust-bowl town in North Dakota in need of a doctor which is personified by John Phillips (John Wayne) who is a farmer and community leader. Initially the doctor and more particularly the daughter are not prepared for the hardships they find and wish to leave but a growing romantic relationship brings everyone closer together. A story like this wouldn't be complete without some more obstacles, and in keeping with the two part tale we have two obstacles one for the budding romance and one for the struggling town.

The film is definitely very much about the message and it essentially has two messages to deliver, there is the message about tyranny and the sacrifices that may be necessary by those who oppose it and also that of the community and working together to overcome adversity. In light of the era that this was made it is not surprising to see such an approach. It is interesting from an historical point of view to observe the attitudes towards Nazi Germany in the United States of 1940 before they had entered the war.

Beyond the good performances from the three principles as well as Spencer Charters in the side kick role there is nothing particularly impressive about the production, but a well intentioned story coupled with an atypical role for Wayne and the interesting historical perspective on both the dust bowl and early years of WWII make this worthwhile viewing for me. It's interesting to note that Sigrid Gurie despite a solid performance would barely make a dozen films over her career. On the other hand Charles Coburn who played her father wouldn't make his first film until he was 56 and continued into his eighties, he also won and Oscar and was nominated for two more.

Beginning like 'The Wind' and ending as a more upbeat 'Grapes of Wrath', the original title sounds like a western, but it actually starts as a very contemporary tale of a pair of Austrian refugees arriving in America after fleeing the Anschluss.

Both the director and one of the scriptwriters - one of the Hollywood Ten, no less - were later blacklisted, so I hope they avoided discussing politics with John Wayne on the set.