The Doolins of Oklahoma

Randolph Scott usually has a bit of rogue in his characters but there's less of it here than usual. Scott is a member of a gang of thieves and barely escapes when the others are slaughtered by the U.S. Marshal, played by George MacReady who is a bad guy even when he's a good guy, as he is here. That was a close call, Scott reflects, and maybe it's time to hang up my sixguns and take up farming. Not only does he farm (corn) but he marries the daughter of the local church deacon. How good can you get?

Nothing good lasts, however, as anyone over the age of eight knows. His former buddies play a dirty trick on him and expose his identity as a bandit, forcing him to leave wife and home and take to the road again. The Doolin Gang isn't bad, as bank-robbing thieving murdering gangs go. None of them is really evil, although they have their differences. The movie differentiates them pretty well and gives us a chance to get to know them, weaknesses and virtues alike. They have colorful names which I can't remember exactly but are something like "Tulsa," "Brickbat," "Arkansas," "Little Billy." Little Billy is the educated one. He's been to school in Pennsylvania. You can tell because he can quote Benjamin Franklin. He's played in such an effete manner by Noah Beery, Jr., that one wonders if his character isn't one of those barely disguised gay people that some of the older movies used. In any case he does not utter one believable line. But Scott is pretty good, playing it so straight. And John Ireland is very watchable too. I don't know why, but I've always liked John Ireland even in villainous roles. The bridge of his nose seems to have caved in and drawn his eyes closer together. His best role was in "All the King's Men." He had a much more prominent part in "Red River" than we see on screen in today's prints. His role was cut to the bone by director Howard Hawks when Hawks found out that Ireland was romancing Hawks' girl friend at the time, who shall remain nameless here except for her real name -- Letitia laCock -- which wasn't made up by Andy Warhol.

Where was I? Oh, yes, Scott's pretty good. I enjoyed him in his earlier movies, "My Favorite Wife" and "Follow the Fleet," where he established and retired the world's record for repeating the word "swell" on screen. There was a considerable hiatus in his career while he played replaceable heroes in replaceable Westerns, until he made "Ride the High Country" for Sam Peckinpah. He was genuinely good in that -- all rogue, from beginning to end.

The big switch in THE DOOLINS OF OKLAHOMA is that GEORGE MACREADY is on the side of the law as a U.S. Marshall, while RANDOLPH SCOTT strays far from the heroic cowboy image he played in so many previous westerns.

He's a hunted man, a fugitive wanted for murder during the era of the Dalton Brothers--and rightly concerned about his survival. As Bill Doolin, he forms his own gang of robbers. On the lam from some pursuers, he enters a church during service and meets a family of church-goers, falling in love with the deacon's daughter. Soon he has a farm, is married to the young lady (VIRGINIA HOUSTON) and wants to go straight and put the past behind him. That is, until his old friends from the Doolin gang show up in town and have other ideas.

When his wife learns his real identity, he rides off to rejoin the gang after a talk with her deacon father (GRIFF BARNETT). The western takes a darker turn, the action gets grittier, and the gang members--including NOAH BEERY, JR., JOHN IRELAND and JOCK MAHONEY--have a little more to do, including some energetic fight scenes well directed by Gordon Douglas.

With a good background score by George Duning, it's a better than average western with Scott in fine form as the ambiguous anti-hero.

In one of the few times in Randolph Scott's career he played a real character, he's notorious outlaw Bill Doolin who was active in the Oklahoma Territory in the Gay Nineties until the law took its course.

Scott had previously played Wyatt Earp in Frontier Marshal and Bat Masterson in Trail Street and was Sam Starr in Belle Starr. But here he plays real life outlaw protagonist Bill Doolin in his own starring film and not in support of Gene Tierney in Belle Starr or a legendary good guy as in the first two. But after watching The Doolins of Oklahoma you'd think Bill Doolin was forced into a life of crime.

No doubt Bill Doolin (1858-1896) may have been forced economically to turn outlaw, but he certainly did take to the trade, much like his earlier peer Jesse James. The film does touch upon parts of the Doolin legend, such as him being in on the Dalton gang raid in Coffeyville because he was holding the horses. You can't reduce Randolph Scott to holding horses so in this film his horse pulled up lame.

His band certainly had some colorful names and in fact those were the names of his men. I liked John Ireland and Noah Beery, Jr. best of that bunch. George MacReady who showed up in many a Scott western, here is a U.S. Marshal for a change and ostensibly a good guy for once.

It's not history, but it's a good Randolph Scott western that forgets the facts and films the legend.

Good Scott western, with lots of action, interesting characters, and a solid script. Doolin (Scott) may be a bankrobber but he's also capable of noble deeds. In short, he's a good-bad guy of the sort the iron-jawed Scott could play to perfection. Here he leads a gang of outlaws whose members are known to us by name. Funny thing about the movies. Even bad guys can be humanized enough so that we care about them. That happens more or less with these gang members.

And get a load of the familiar Alabama Hills that Scott and Buddy Boetticher explored in their great Ranown series of oaters. Director Douglas does some effective staging with the Neolithic slabs, worthy of Boetticher. There're some other good touches by Douglas. I especially like the little boy who stares Scott down in church. I don't think I've seen anything quite like it. Surprisingly, veteran screen baddie George Macready plays a federal marshal, which took some getting used to. And what a sweetheart Virginia Huston is. Who wouldn't give up a life of crime for her. It's that element, I think, that lends the ending such poignancy.

All in all, it's a well done 90-minutes by Columbia, somewhere between an A-production and a B. I'm just sorry Scott never got the recognition as a western star that he deserved.

A year after hunting down Bill Doolin in Return of the Badmen, Randolph Scott makes a rare appearance on the wrong side of the law as the same notorious outlaw in The Doolins of Oklahoma. The writers pay only passing attantion to the facts in this solid programmer efficiently directed by Gordon Douglas, and Scott makes a hugely sympathetic hero, who is tricked back into a life of crime by his old gang after going straight with preacher's daughter Virginia Huston.