Cheyenne

There are just enough new era elements in CHEYENNE to keep us interested and titillated, for a "typical" western directed by Raoul Walsh, who had directed his share of them. Well-dressed gentleman Wylie (Dennis Morgan) takes the stage to Cheyenne with Ann Kincaid (Jane Wyman) and Emily Carson (Janis Paige). Wylie's job is to bring in the "poet" robber, who is holding up all the stage coaches even before the regular robbers can get to them. It probably would have been too naughty to show one of the women in the bath, so we see Morgan take a bath in the hot water brought up for Ann. Throughout the film, Wylie and Ann toy with the fact that they may be married (for the inn-keeper's sake)... Also some pretty risqué chit-chat between Kincaid and Wylie. Pretty rough for a movie industry that had been under restrictions for ten years. Beautiful outdoor scenery of Sedona, although it looks like some backdrops were used during filming the chase scenes. There are some good surprises in here to keep things lively. Keep an eye out for Alan Hale senior, who was great in any type of film. He doesn't have a big part, unfortunately, which left him time to make five films in 1947. He made 235 films in less than 40 years... more than 6 films a year. Busy guy. Cheyenne didn't win any Oscars, but Jane Wyman will go on to win one in 1949 for Johhny Belinda.

Maybe if Bruce Bennet had played the Dennis Morgan role and Arthur Kennedy had done Bennet's I would have liked this film better. As it is, it's a bit too cute, cuddly, and rom comey for my taste, especially for a Raoul Walsh Western. Morgan, especially, seems miscast. I guess the producers wanted a charming rogue, the kind of character Gable or Garner coud play in their sleep, but Morgan comes across as just your standard song and dance man (who outsources the songs to Janis Page). You keep expecting Jack Carson to show up with the tuxes and top hats. And while the dialogue from Alan Le May and Thames Williamson has a generous supply of amusing one liners delivered by everyone in the cast the waggishness gets a bit much. I was hoping, for example, for at least some attempt to delve into the ambiguous, interesting Bennet/Jane Wyman relationship, only to be disappointed. And I really hate it when a great actor like Kennedy is consigned, as here, to cliche bad guy roles. Oh well. Paige sure is hot and sassy and Max Steiner's score is rousing (even if he repeats his central theme over and over and over). C plus.

PS...Alan Hale's cowardly sherriff is brought in about 75% of the way through, as if Walsh knew he had a dull dog on his hands and was desperately trying to liven things up.

It was all said above. This is a rewarding movie to watch with good depth. I'd just like to add that the removal of Arthur Kennedy half way through the film, just as Alan Hale finally makes an entrance, is interesting. It's almost as though Raoul was having a hard time with Mr. Kennedy and had a part written to replace him with the `Skipper's' dad.

The ending is a wee bit of a surprise only because just as it looks like thing may not turn out the way we expect them too, they do. Yes Mr. Walsh did make many memorable westerns (I've seen the majority of them) but it's almost as though he was trying to move into another direction with this picture. Weather audiences appreciated it or not are still to be seen.

Scotty Jensen Racine, WI. USA

Dennis Morgan was a very handsome dude and his acting was quite all right. Jane Wyman also already showed her acting talent in this movie. Outlaw bandits on horses robbing the stagecoaches or the banks were the typical major western genre since day one. Adding some convenient romance was also pretty typical arrangement for the handsome leading male and female characters was an inevitable ingredient almost in every western movie other than the gun fights or a final show down.

But what I have to point out again and again for the earlier western movies, the deafening, overly played soundtrack, the score, usually through those whole movies soon as the movies started. At that time, these movie companies used to hire contractual orchestras to play the music specifically scored for each movie. Boy Oh boy, weren't them not just loud and most of the time so inappropriate and exaggerated. Every scene would sync and combine with music, but most of the time, absolutely unnecessary and over-killed.

The soundtrack in this 1947 western was exceptionally loud, annoying and inappropriate, almost like military marching music specially drafted. The music in this movie undoubtedly can be used in those WWII war movies and might be more appropriate. Battleships sailed to battle with the German or Japanese navy forces, or bombers taking off one by one to cross the English Channel on the missions to bomb German military industries.

But for the mercy of God, instead of battleships or bombers set off to the battleground, the military like musical soundtrack in this film was used just on a stagecoach with only three passengers on it and one driver and one supporting shotgun beside him as well as several bandits on the horses rushing down the hill to rob the stagecoach. This kinda music and scores later were so blindly used on Walter Disney's cartoons to sync every movement of the cartoons' caricatures, making the western movies without any big difference from cartoons. For this movie, I have to turn down the volume almost to nothing to allow me to watch on.

It's the Wyoming Territory 1867. Lone bandit 'The Poet' is hounding Wells Fargo stagecoaches. The law catches up to gambler James Wylie (Dennis Morgan). He's given one choice. He has to catch The Poet. He and Ann Kincaid (Jane Wyman) have a meet-cute over a bath. They and Emily Carson (Janis Paige) board the stagecoach.

The meet-cute is fun. The misunderstanding afterwards is even better. It's a pretty threesome and pretty fun. It's too bad that the potential love triangle gets sidelined. The story could play with that a bit more. There are probably way too many bandits. The only bandit that matters is The Poet. It's interesting to have The Sundance Kid watching this from the future. This is a fun western.