The Spoilers

All these Alaskan films are usually worth watching mainly for their splendid bar fights, in which the contestants usually conscientiously wreck the entire establishment, break all windows, smash all bottles, destroy the entire bar and make a perfect exorbitant havoc of the whole studio set-up. Anne Baxter is no Marlene Dietrich, but any film with Jeff Chandler is worth watching just for his sake if for nothing else, and although he is no John Wayne he is more likable and intelligent. Earlier films on this book of gold diggers being cheated of their mines by foul play were usually in black and white, while this one is in color. It doesn't make the story any better, but it adds color to the fights, making them more splendidly colorful. Still the earlier version with Marlene Dietrich and John Wayne is to be preferred, it was more alive, while the only truly genuine characters here are the old gold diggers defending what they waged their lives for.

IMDB and wiki says this is less than an hour and a half. The version I saw was nearly two hours. The main title also had a title in Spanish translating into The Corruption of Alaska. Could this be a Spanish version? There's also a good amount of time between the ending that wiki describes and the ending in this film. I wonder if there is added footage?

Another odd thing -- it appears to be based in the late 1800's but there's a scene early on where a bar tender presses an electrical button to alert someone that a person has come into the saloon/gambling joint.

Overall, this is a B western in my book. Directed like a TV movie.

Had "The Spoilers" not been a remake (in fact, it was remade several times before 1955), I would have likely scored the film an 8....that, and the sloppy use of doubles at the end of the story.

The story is set in 1899 during the Alaska/Yukon gold rush...so, it's not exactly a western...though it often plays like one. A group of no-good scoundrels have come up with a scheme to steal gold mine claims...and at first, Roy (Jeff Chandler) tries to keep a level head and convinces his partner (John McIntire) to let the law run its course. Well, this clearly does not work and Roy doesn't realize how crooked and how deep the scheme runs. Eventually, when they learn the truth, Roy and the other miners are fighting mad. Along for the ride are a couple ladies....one a saloon owner and all-around dame and the other...well, she's keeping a few secrets.

While the film doesn't feature as impressive a cast as the previous version of the film (which starred John Wayne, Randolph Scott and Marlene Dietrich), the second-tier cast with Chandler, Rory Calhoun, Ray Danton, Anne Baxter and many others is quite good. Also, the studio apparently thought enough of the production to sink a buttload of money in creating a massive train wreck and the craziest fight scene I can remember seeing in a movie (although if you look closely, you can see that OFTEN the fighters are stuntmen and not Chandler and Calhoun!). Overall, the film is a lot of fun...and quite exciting. Well worth seeing.

A gang intent on stealing the gold mine owned by Jeff Chandler and John McIntire come to Nome during the Alaskan gold rush.

It's the fifth screen version of Reach Beach's sturdy novel, and Universal put its best foot forward in casting from among their stock company. Anne Baxter comes close to busting out of her decolletage as Cherry Malotte, Rory Calhoun gives a fine performance as the smooth Alex McNamara, and Ray Danton, Barbara Britton, Wallace Ford, Carl Benton Reid, Raymond Walburn (in his last big screen performance) and Ruth Donnelly show up. But Jesse Hibbs direction is adequate, and the stunt men doubling for Chandler and Calhoun don't actually try to kill each other, as William Farnum and Tom Santschi did in the 1914 version. It's quite enjoyable, but as with many a 1950s version of a durable property, it seems a bit rote, less connected to the characters Beach had met when he fell to gold fever in Alaska, and more to roles that had become a bit stereotyped over the decades. Still, it's always fun to see people fall into the thick, gluey mud.

Rex Beaches 1906 novel had been done 2 times as a silent film, twice as a sound film prior to this outing. So the plot had been used and reused with slight differences. This one pretty much follows the same plot.

The 1942 version with Marlenea Deitrich, and John Wayne is better that this one for star power. The 1930 version starring Gary Cooper was once in a late show tv package in the 1960's but is now considered a lost film. The silents are impossible for most modern viewers to watch. That brings us to 1955.

Rory Calhoun is a fairly big name actor, while Jeff Chandler is most comfortable in formats other than westerns which even though this is Alaska, it plays mostly as a Western. Anne Baxter is okay here. In fact the whole cast is okay. That's the problem, as this film really adds nothing to the previous versions and the stars are not as good as the John Wayne / Randolph Scott version.

This version is currently on Grit. Would love it if the channel could run the Scott/Wayne/Dietrich version with this as a double feature. If they could run the Cooper version too, it would make an interesting triple. Especially with all those bulb head commercials the channel runs. If they could remake it today and make it more of an "R" rated film, it could actually sell tickets. With a good cast, it could be re-made well and use some modern effects and some :mature loving plot to update it.