★ 7 / 10
Action packed western about the real life Dalton
giant13
Action packed western about the real life Dalton gang with truth stretching of course, but that doesn’t affect the fun. Randy was certainly under used here…
Action packed western about the real life Dalton gang with truth stretching of course, but that doesn’t affect the fun. Randy was certainly under used here, since he doesn’t even hold a gun during the entire film, but that makes sense since he wasn’t part of the gang. A slow start meets the half way point that marks the beginning of a 45 minute nonstop action string of set pieces that ends predictably, with the gang’s demise, and it was thrilling nonetheless. Also—the Kino Lorber print is outstanding. With this all star cast of western regulars, you need to go see it now!
[insert any Andy Devine quote here.]
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★ 6 / 10
This is quite a solid western adventure depicting
CinemaSerf
This is quite a solid western adventure depicting how the unstoppable railroad and their developers rode roughshod over all in their path. The "Dalton" family…
This is quite a solid western adventure depicting how the unstoppable railroad and their developers rode roughshod over all in their path. The "Dalton" family are one such family and when they engage "Jackson" (Randolph Scott) to help them out legally, to obviously no avail, they resort to lawlessness and start making life difficult for the trains and pursuing law enforcement alike. Scott actually features quite sparingly here, most of the film belongs to Brian Donlevy ("Grat") and Broderick Crawford ("Bob) and to the scene stealing Andy Devine ("Ozark") who knows how defuse a potentially lethal gun battle with a stagecoach and a little brass neck. It's only 80 minutes and George Marshall sees that the romance is kept to a minimum and that there are plenty of horse chases, shoot 'em ups and even some humour as the gang try to stay one step ahead. It's always nice to see Mary Gordon ("Ma Dalton" here, but always "Mrs. Hudson" in the Rathbone/Bruce "Sherlock Holmes" mysteries) and I quite enjoyed this.
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★ 6 / 10
Highly fictionalized western from Universal Pictures and director George Marshall
AlsExGal
East coast lawyer Tod Jackson (Randolph Scott) travels to Kansas where he meets the Dalton brothers: Grat (Brian Donlevy), Bob (Broderick Crawford), Ben…
East coast lawyer Tod Jackson (Randolph Scott) travels to Kansas where he meets the Dalton brothers: Grat (Brian Donlevy), Bob (Broderick Crawford), Ben (Stuart Erwin), and Emmett (Frank Albertson). They're farmers, with Bob a local law man, but when a crooked land company tries to steal their property, the brothers end up fugitives from the law. They soon embark on a spree of bank and train robberies that mark them as the most wanted men in the region. Meanwhile, Tod makes time with Bob's girlfriend Julie (Kay Francis).The cast is good, but the goofy script is almost 100% pure baloney, and production lurches from nicely competent to threadbare and cheap. One primary problem is that ostensible protagonist Scott is pointless to most of the story. I kept waiting for him to be reluctantly forced to go after his old friends, but that never happens. His character could have been removed from the whole thing with little change to the overall tale. I expected Donlevy to take the lead among the Daltons, but instead it's Crawford who gets the leadership role. Andy Devine plays the comic relief, naturally, but his character is also an inveterate skirt-chaser with a succession of women on his knee, not exactly what one expects from Devine.Two odds points from the film: there's a scene where the gang robs a train, and they steal the horses belonging to lawmen on the train. The horses are on an open-top corral train car, and they actually ride them off of the side of the moving train. It looked like an extremely dangerous stunt for the horses, but it's shown with no cuts, and none of the horses seemed injured, despite some spills. There's also a big shoot-out in the movie with the gang members inside a saloon with their opponents outside in the street and on opposite buildings. There is a lengthy exchange of gunfire through the saloon's large picture window, and the window never breaks, instead the bullets passing through and leaving bullet holes. Once or twice I can believe it, but a succession of rifle and pistol shots through a large sheet of glass and no shattering? That's some strong glass!
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6.4/10
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Can someone please seed?