Cheyenne

There is nothing particularly wrong or bad about "Cheyenne". But, for that matter, there's not all that right or good about it either. It seems just okay in most every way....and I think part of it is because both Dennis Morgan and Jane Wyman seemed a bit out of place in the leads.

When the story begins, professional gambler James Wylie (Morgan) is approached with a proposition....to find 'The Poet' or else! Well, he didn't like the 'or else' so he travels to the next town to look for the identiy of this bandit who has robbed many stage coaches. Along the way, he hooks up with a lady who doesn't particularly like him (Wyman) and eventually he sorts it all out and there is, of course, a happy ending.

Despite being directed by Raoul Walsh, the film seemed a bit long and dull to me. I have a hard time putting my finger on exactly what left me rather cold about this one...but it rarely seemed interesting and long before it was finished I found myself getting bored despite it being a polished Warner Brothers production.

By the way, if you do watch it, at about 89 minutes into the film, a gang jumps on their horses and gives chase. One of the folks giving chase has his hat fly off...but when they catch up to the guy, they all are wearing hats!

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.

That's how you supposedly pronounce Cheyenne. Wanted man Dennis Morgan (Jim) is given a second chance by lawman Barton MacLane (Yancey) if Morgan heads to Shy-Anne and leads him to "The Poet" who is robbing stagecoaches. This poet is even upsetting the local bad gang headed up by Arthur Kennedy (Sundance). Every time Sundance pulls a robbery, "The Poet" has beaten him to it and left him a poem in the treasure trunk. Every time. Ha ha. That's pretty cheeky. Anyway, Kennedy wants to team up with this guy and carry out some big hold-ups. Morgan has to find and capture the poet and gets involved with a couple of ladies on the way – Jane Wyman (Ann) and Janis Paige (Emily). You know these two ladies are going to figure in the story just a little more than on that initial stagecoach ride into Shy-Anne….

This film is entertaining and contains a great saloon song – "Going Back to Old Cheyenne" – as sung by Janis Paige. The film leads you through its journey with action, drama, comedy and various set pieces and the overall result is a good western.

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.

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.