Tulsa

No need to repeat the plot. Darn few actresses can dominate a "man's picture" like Tulsa the way Susan Hayward does. What an exceptional combination of beauty and boldness she was. The production values of this non-studio project are unusually well targeted. Without them, the movie would be little more than a good programmer instead of the sleeper it is. Credit those values (special effects, location shooting, etc.) to producer Walter Wanger, who proved he had an eye for quality material, both big budget and small, e.g. Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956). Credit too, under-rated director Stuart Heisler with a sense of pacing and an ability to redeem difficult material with intelligent touches, e.g. Beachhead (1954), Storm Warning (1951), etc.

I especially like the nightmare montage of Redbird's (Armendariz) after he's set fire to the wells. Up to that point, the derricks have been portrayed as stately umbilical cords of wealth and progress, the life's blood of the city and state. So it's a surprise to see them suddenly depicted as hulking black monsters threatening everything around them. Contrast that dark depiction with the uncritically sunny, yet thematically similar, mega-hit Giant (1956). It doesn't take much extrapolation to update Redbird's vision to the oil-based crisis of today; at the same time, the values that evolve among the movie's characters show a surprising sensitivity to the need for a sustainable environment.

I also like the way Indian Charlie Lightfoot (Yowlatchie) is shown as excelling at white man ways by becoming a shrewd businessman. Too often Hollywood portrayed Indians at extremes, either as bloodthirsty savages or as noble primitives, but rarely as 3-dimensional human beings. The screenplay may pander at times, especially with Pinky (Wills), but it's also unusually well-rounded for its period. I guess my only reservation is with the splendid special effects. Those burning oil fields are just so incredibly hot, it's impossible to see Brady (Preston) enter the inferno with little more than a squirt of water. Nonetheless, in my little book, the movie is a definite sleeper. True, as the lovelorn outsider, Pedro Armendariz is no quirky James Dean. Yet, despite its relative obscurity, Tulsa is as well-acted and carries as much depth as its sprawling, better-known counterpart, Giant.

Susan Hayward doesn't back down when it comes to protecting what is hers. Her character is embroiled in the early wars between wildcat oil drillers and cattle ranchers in Oklahoma. A pretty fast paced movie that stays busy. The oil field fire is a tremendous sight. Chill Wills, Robert Preston and Ed Begley round out the super cast.

In the early 1920's there was the inevitable clash between the cattle ranchers and the burgeoning oil drillers in Oklahoma. This account of that clash, filmed in color, is fast moving and interesting. It revolves around Susan Hayward's character, and Hayward is marvelous as always, and how she has to learn to adapt to the inevitable changes being wrought by the explosion of oil money. The climactic oil field fire is well done indeed. Recommended.

I had no preconceived notion of this film, but it was on a 4 movie DVD set I bought for another movie in the set. Popped it on, and was I surprised. This movie is VERY good. Nicely photographed in color, NEVER boring, well written with a doozy of a disaster at the end that is quite impressive using 1949 special effects. Film concerns the boom town of Tulsa in 1920's and the greed of people and overproduction of oil wells, infringing on the farmers land and poisoning the waterways killing the cattle herds. Nicest bit of the film was the conservation angle about too much oil in boom times ruins the land for the future when they dry up. Good movie.

Tulsa is directed by Stuart Heisler and adapted to screenplay by Frank S. Nugent and Curtis Kenyon from a Richard Wormser story. It stars Susan Hayward, Robert Preston, Pedro Armendáriz, Lloyd Gough and Ed Begley. Music is by Frank Skinner and cinematography by Winton C. Hoch.

It's Tulsa at the start of the oil boom and when Cherokee Lansing's (Hayward) rancher father is killed in a fight, she decides to take on the Tanner Oil Company by setting up her own oil wells. But at what cost to the grazing land of the ranchers?

Perfect material for Hayward to get her teeth into, Tulsa is no great movie, but it a good one. Sensible ethics battle greed and revenge as Hayward's Cherokee Lensing lands in a male dominated industry and kicks ass whilst making the boys hearts sway. She's smart, confident and ambitious, but she's too driven to see the painfully obvious pitfalls of her motives, or even what she has become. It all builds to a furious climax, where fires rage both on land and in hearts, the American dream ablaze and crumbling, the effects and model work wonderfully pleasing.

Slow in parts, too melodramatic in others, but Hayward, Preston, Gough and the finale more than make this worth your time. 7/10