The Gunfight at Dodge City

After a career that stretched back to the silent era that included work with such directors as Alfred Hitchcock, George Stevens, and Preston Sturges, Joel McCrae turned almost exclusively to the western genre in the mid-1940's. Near the end of McCrae's prodigious output of modestly budgeted westerns, he played real life lawman, journalist, and gambler, Bat Masterson, in "The Gunfight at Dodge City." While the story treads familiar territory, McCrae and the movie will likely please most fans of the star in particular and horse-operas in general. As Masterson, a weathered Joel McCrae becomes the town sheriff after his brother, the former sheriff, is killed. Nothing new here; a kindly town doctor played by John McIntire; a lovely widowed saloon keeper, Nancy Gates; a preacher and his prim uptight daughter, James Westerfield and Julie Adams; a friendly townsman and his mentally-challenged brother, Walter Coy and Wright King; and the requisite bad guys, Richard Anderson and Don Haggerty. Besides McCrae, only John McIntire makes much of an impression among the supporting cast.

Director Joseph M. Newman mixes the cliched elements into an entertaining 82 minutes; a few gunfights, a daring rescue, a touch of romance, an attempted rape, fistfights, and the requisite standby, a showdown on the dusty main street of an old western town. "The Gunfight at Dodge City" is no classic of the genre, but rather a routine western that offers all the elements for an afternoon's entertainment, plus the opportunity to watch an iconic western star, Joel McCrae, at work doing what he loved and did exceptionally well.

Absent from this film are Wyatt Earp, Masterson's close friend and colleague in Dodge City, and Masterson's dapper clothing, a lifelong trademark, two major flaws in the film. His avoidance of public office doesn't ring true, either. The plot itself takes considerable liberties with the truth. (The television series "Bat Masterson" was closer to the truth in spirit and sometimes in fact.)

However, McCrea's intelligent and introspective portrayal of Masterson is on the mark. The acting of him and the rest of the cast carry the film, which is saddled with uninspired direction.

My vote has always been that of all the great stars identified as western heroes, none was more upright than Joel McCrea. In fact whenever he tried to vary that character, the results usually weren't that good. Even in comedy parts like his films with Preston Sturges, he's still an honorable man, albeit caught up in some lunacy.

McCrea never crossed the line into making himself look ridiculous like Dudley Doo-Right and The Gunfight at Dodge City is a case in point. Here he's playing Bat Masterson who has come into Dodge City after a killing in another town and buys an interest in the Lady Gay Saloon owned by widow Nancy Gates. Brother Ed Masterson, played by Harry Lauter is the town marshal and he's keeping company with preacher's daughter played by Julie Adams.

Brother Ed is shot in the back during a cowboy hurrahing of Dodge City and Bat steps in to take his place. He brings some law and order back to Dodge City and makes both friends and enemies in the process. And he's got both the women mentioned before interested in him.

Fate would have it, a friend from another town comes back in his life. He wants him to bust his brother, who's mentally retarded, out of custody. The brother has killed a man who was making fun of him. He owes this guy big time and he has a responsibility to his badge in Dodge City.

I won't say anything, but Joel McCrea never took the less honorable route in his cinematic career. And as for which woman he winds up with? See the film.

Also look for an unusual performance against type from Richard Anderson. Anderson usually plays nice guys and he's best known for being Lee Majors boss in the Six Million Dollar Man. He's a serpentine villain here and a good one.

I saw this when I was 12 years old when it was the second feature of a double bill. That's what McCrea westerns were relegated to at that time. But Joel McCrea was a real cowboy hero to this 12 year old.

Still is.

We've seen it all before in so many Westerns, even to the cosy buggy ride out into the country for a bit of romancing. If the tagline was "All The Thundering Might Of The Most Famed Gunfight Of Them All!", then this was hyperbole even by Hollywood standards; when I sat down to watch it it I thought it might be a reworking of the OK Corral shootout, but it wasn't; the inevitable gunfight at the end was quite tame, and its outcome predictable. McCrea was in his latish fifties when the film was made, and it would have been a sad swansong for an usually-watchable actor; thank goodness he went onto make "Ride the High Country".

I enjoyed this. It provides everything one expects from a Western: good plot, revenge, love, conflict between law and personal conscience, plenty of gun-play, and mood. And a few excellent quotes. Try: "The distance between here and that street is the distance between a rabbit and a man." The beginning is refreshing too. Before the title and opening credits, a world-weary McCrea is telling a simple teenage boy who admires his prowess with a gun what it really is like. How scared one is, how little it has to do with heroics, and how awfully wretched one feels afterwards. In this film, the gunfights are fast, and mostly in the dark. That's probably more accurate than so many more overblown sequences in other films. The performances on everyone's part, even the baddies', are in many ways unexpectedly subtle. Take Regan, the bad Sheriff. Look at his strange, tormented eyes. None of it's overplayed. If it's raining outside, get out the popcorn and curl up with this.