Notte di bivacco

Maybe if Bruce Bennet had played the Dennis Morgan role and Arthur Kennedy had done Bennet's I would have liked this film better. As it is, it's a bit too cute, cuddly, and rom comey for my taste, especially for a Raoul Walsh Western. Morgan, especially, seems miscast. I guess the producers wanted a charming rogue, the kind of character Gable or Garner coud play in their sleep, but Morgan comes across as just your standard song and dance man (who outsources the songs to Janis Page). You keep expecting Jack Carson to show up with the tuxes and top hats. And while the dialogue from Alan Le May and Thames Williamson has a generous supply of amusing one liners delivered by everyone in the cast the waggishness gets a bit much. I was hoping, for example, for at least some attempt to delve into the ambiguous, interesting Bennet/Jane Wyman relationship, only to be disappointed. And I really hate it when a great actor like Kennedy is consigned, as here, to cliche bad guy roles. Oh well. Paige sure is hot and sassy and Max Steiner's score is rousing (even if he repeats his central theme over and over and over). C plus.

PS...Alan Hale's cowardly sherriff is brought in about 75% of the way through, as if Walsh knew he had a dull dog on his hands and was desperately trying to liven things up.