rockymark-30974

Actually, this film was much better than I expected reading some reviews (not here but elsewhere). Cooper also gave a superb performance. I have no idea why his performance was criticized. However he looked amateurish in the drunken scene with William Frawley. He wasn't made for that kind of scene. Ann Sheridan as his wife almost played in a Hawksian style, similar to her role in "I Was a Male War Bride." The direction often reminded me of Haws. But McCarey was known for his improvisatory direction, which often annoyed actors like Cary Grant, but there was an easy-going style to so many scenes, such as with the car mechanic, though there too it could have used some editing.

The dialogue often sparkled with Wildean witticisms too. As for putting the film in a box, whether satire or straight drama, why not allow the film to breathe on its own terms as neither? Obviously Sam (Cooper) was committed to helping others with often farcical results. There. I've united both arguments. The attempt to simplistically reduce it to farce or satire is unnecessary.

However the film really fails in the final third when it becomes too repetitious and often skirts Capracorn. Not that I have anything against Capracorn if Capra does it. But the ending here with the Salvation Army and the deus ex machina change of heart of the bank manager just seems artificial. I also found the role of the brother superfluous in the film & poorly written. Did he have to be such a total idiot to find comedy in him?

Cut down some of the scenes (don't eliminate them entirely) and with a better ending this would have been a ten-star film. But what remains is a seemingly effortless dramatic comedy typical of McCarey's improvisational style of writing and directing, as in Lu's (Ann Sheridan) sustained giggles when Sam is unaware of the couple in their home. It was also interesting to see the beautiful Ruth Roman in a bit part before she had a major role in Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train (1951) a few years later, with her great line, "What do you mean, 'your murder,' Guy?"

Anyone familiar with the classic film, Shane, will find in this film a mere paraphrase of it, with many identical conflicts, including town bullies who want a woman's land & a final confrontation with them.

I am well aware that most Westerns recycle those elements but with greater finesse. Thus there is usually a larger theme holding the elements together, such as Law & Order in Shane, Rio Bravo, the Man Who Shot Liberty Valence, etc. But there is no larger theme here. Just bullies (first of the rebel, then of his son, who is mute).

Alan Ladd looks significantly older than he did in Shane, while Ladd's real son plays his son in the film. He is serviceable but not the actor some critics claim.

The real gem is Olivia de Haviland who turns in another star performance as the woman who assists the "proud rebel" played by Ladd.

It seems to me that to build an entire film around town bullies is cheating, script-wise. Obviously there's always room for confrontation with a bully in a Western. But here the entire script relies on bullies to motivate most of the action.

Some plot elements are confusing. First the son's dysphonia is considered mental (psychogenic) but then an operation is required! Other scenes seem unrealistic. Is it possible that John Chandler (Ladd) can work on the house construction alone?

Like the film, Jerome Moross's.at times sounds like an embarrassing paraphrase of his memorable score for The Big Country, though later cues sound more original.

Despite the inane travelogue at the beginning of the film and the superficial romantic genre to which it belongs, I was impressed by how the film delved into the complicated relationships of the six leading characters and found underlying depths in them, kind of like the proverbial sugar-coated pill. The cast was superb. I always thought that Dorothy McGuire was one of the most beautiful of all Hollywood stars, though she never fit into any simple category. Clifton Webb plays his usual caustic self. Maggie McNamara was under-rated in her career. She emerged in the same year as Audrey Hepburn & almost seemed like clones. Both were nominated yet Hepburn won the Oscar & her career was destined for greater stardom, while McNamara's ended tragically. But she's very fine in this film as she was in Preminger's The Moon Is Blue. The singer who sang the title song wasn't bad either. He should have been given a recording contract. Kudos too to Victor Young's score, both original and adapting the title song. The ending is one of the sweetest endings I know of, a bit of a "deus ex machina," but it works superbly.