L'ultimo duello

John Jacob Astor is sending an expedition to Oregon to trade for furs and set up a post. His clerk, Franchot Tone, will join Scottish traders Nigel Bruce and Leo G. Carroll in the effort, to get some adventure for the quiet, bookish young man. When voyageur John Carroll smuggles singer Carol Bruce on board, disciplinarian captain Walter Brennan won't turn back to let her off. Instead he makes her cabin boy, and his wrath falls on Tone, when Carroll allows him to take the responsibility for the breach of decorum and naval rules.

It's one of the big "Manifest Destiny" movies of the late pre-War era, extolling what is called "American exceptionalism" and "diversity" these days. Cecil B. Demille turned out UNION PACIFIC; King Vidor NORTHERN PASSAGE; and Fritz Lang WESTERN UNION, all big epics with large casts of well-known performers. This Frank Lloyd production for Universal may seem a bit clunky, confined a bit by its black-and-white photography and its now stereotyped storyline, but it fits nicely into the category, and is full of of tension and excitement. Tone may be a bit old to play a role a lot like his in MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY (which Lloyd also directed) and Carroll is hammy, but Brennan gives a beautiful performance as a Bligh-like captain, nuanced and evolving, capable of portraying a man recognizing his own failures. It's not a great movie, but it is a typically solid effort by Lloyd.

That's the first time I watch this film, rather hard to find besides You Tube channel. It looks like a Paramount film, more than an Universal one, and the style, atmosphere, is typical of the forties, early or late. Franchot Tone is obviously the lead in this adventure western, and also ship yarn - after all sea adventures was a Frank Lloyd's trademark - very pleasant to discover, where comedy elements are agreeable to bear. John Carroll in a Frenchman character is maybe a miscast, but that doesn't restricts the quality of this feature. The second part is far more exciting than the first, more action packed. This is not the Frank Lloyd that I will remember the most, unlike MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY, but it's worth seeing.

This very obscure film is a formula action piece - stowaway girl on all male voyage, two men on board in love with her, indians, etc. - you get the picture. It's set in the early 1800s and is the sort of yarn one would typically find Maureen O'Hara in. Universal did its usual flat barely competent job. Carol Bruce plays Julie Morgan (she would later achieve great acclaim as Julie LaVerne in the 1946 Bway revival of SHOW BOAT), a NY singer in love with dashing Canadian trapper, Ovide (John Carroll). Franchot Tone is John Jacob Astor's gentleman organizer of a fur trading expedition via ship to Oregon - Robert Stevens. Ovide romances Julie and lies about his Parisian home, so she stows away on a voyage (she thinks) to Paris to be with him. By the time she is discovered they are at sea and Captain Thorne (Walter Brennan) won't turn back. From then on it's pure formula. Bruce is delightful and beautiful in the role but sadly never found stardom on film, although her Broadway credits are solid. Brennan is excellent as a hard, embittered, go by the book sea captain and gives the only outstanding performance - had he not been Oscar nommed that year in support for SERGEANT YORK he may have had a crack at the award with this performance - it's that good.

Unless you're a fan of one of the stars it is not worth your while to seek this out. It did garner a deserved Oscar nom for a rousing and varied orchestral score. Frank Lloyd had lost his touch by the time he got to this one.

"This Woman is Mine" is a decent film, though not without a few problems. The biggest of which for me was John Carroll with his incredibly broad and overdone French-Canadian accent. Pepe le Pew and the Frito Bandito are about equally decent representations of foreigners! Additionally, a few of the characters seemed a bit hard to believe...the incredibly rigid Captain (Walter Brennan) and the woman from the title, for examples.

The film begins on shore. A playboy type, Ovide de Montigny (Carroll), convinces Julie (Carol Bruce) that he loves her...and she soon stows away aboard the vessel that he's signed on for a voyage of the Pacific Northwest. The Captain is NOT amused but here's a part of the film that seemed annoying...he blamed Robert (Franchot Tone) even though this was illogical and everyone insisted Robert was not to blame. The Captain was pretty much like this through the whole picture--irrational and quick to ignore everyone when it comes to his many premature conclusions. How is Robert to manage to survive this voyage with a nutty Captain, a woman and her jerk boyfriend??

The film has a lot of nice scenery and the story is modestly enjoyable. Not much more I feel like saying about this one.

Grossly underrated splendid sea adventure of an early fur expedition from New York around the Horn to Oregon to do some risky trading with the Indians - all risks are taken, and paid for. But the direction and the acting is efficient to say the least, Franchot Tone is the only gentleman on board, having followed the expedition against his willl, while the rowdy John Carroll as the extremely irresponsible and sympathetically unscrupulous French Canadian is the most colorful part, always promising and doing the wrong thing, and that's how he got a female stowaway on board (Carol Bruce), beautiful and charming enough but all cheated and as unwilling to be part of the adventure as Franchot Tone. Walter Brennan is the major character as the captain, a hard one to deal with sticking ruthlessly to the formalism of discipline, while Leo G. Carroll and Nigel Bruce (both quite young here) add some comedy to ease up the ordeals. Frank Lloyd Wright made "Mutiny on the Bounty" six years earlier, and this is rather in the same vein but without any exaggerated evil - the Indians are as they were in the 1830s on the west coast wilderness, and the leaders of the expedition were well aware of that from the beginning. Eventually even captain Walter Brennan softens up enough to become almost human and saves the situation.