• Vera Cruz (06/12/07)
• The Cowboy and the Lady (06/19/07)
• The Winning of Barbara Worth (06/26/07)
• The Real Glory (07/03/07)

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AUTEUR'S CORNER also by Henry Hathaway GO WEST YOUNG MAN BRIGHAM YOUNG WING AND A PRAYER CALL NORTHSIDE 777 NIAGARA

Canavan turns out to be the doctor for the American soldiers training the Philippine Constabulary--a task which, in the wake of the 1906 Spanish-American War, proves a bit tricky. Vicious Moro raiders led by a chap named Alipang (Tetsu Komai) are scaring the prospective police silly with threats and bloodthirsty behaviour, making training them rather challenging. Canavan, flanked by approving Lieutenants McCool (David Niven) and Larsen (Broderick Crawford), thinks that psychology is what's needed to buck up the recruits to fight the Moro menace, but he's faced with the bull-headedness of Capt. Steve Hartley (Reginald Owen), whose increasing blindness mirrors his own inability to see reason. Violence, treachery, cholera--it all comes to a head as the constables go toe to toe with Alipang in a fight to the finish.

To point out the colonial mentality of The Real Glory isn't saying anything profound. Anyone with the power to observe will instantly notice the absence of major Filipino characters and that all of their issues are debated solely by white military men. Just as obvious is the fact that many of the personal digressions (romance with Capt. Hartley's daughter Linda (Andrea Leeds), Lt. Larsen's obsession with orchids) have diddlysquat to do with the highly marginalized, highly vulnerable populace providing the impetus for the narrative. But what's important here is that these outdated attitudes are the only thing the movie has to offer: aside from limited action that establishes the characters' "real glory," it's all speechifying on the order of "Fact is, you're afraid to live. That's much worse than being afraid to die!" The movie waves its banner in the hopes of stirring us, but it's far too late for that to happen anymore.

One searches in vain for something to enjoy: a beautiful shot, a smart line, a subplot that deepens an appreciation of the film. It doesn't happen. We have nothing to distract us from the fait accomplis of white men selflessly contributing to the Filipino cause. Even those aforementioned digressions are designed to bolster the heroes' image rather than tell a story about their own humanity. There are no humans in The Real Glory, only heroes, villains, and a nameless rabble of Filipino extras whose stories will never be told by the people who make films like this. Whether or not one forgives it the excesses of the times, the fact remains that the film is null as a creative venture. At least John Ford offered something when Ethan Edwards went after those Indians; here the effort is so flimsy, so shallow, and so boring that you've washed your hands of it long before it's over.

MGM's DVD rendering of The Real Glory is adequate. The full-frame, b&w image has its issues with print damage (both tiny flecks and the occasional scratch down the screen), but mostly it's a slightly soft transfer that gets by without any real fireworks. The Dolby Digital 2.0 mono sound is similar, hardly ringing like crystal yet doing the job in its muffled sort of way.-

1.33:1; English Mono, French Mono, Spanish Mono; CC; English, Spanish subtitles; DVD-5; 96 minutes; NR

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AUTEUR'S CORNER also by Henry King LOVE IS A MANY-SPLENDORED THING CAROUSEL

Miss Barbara Worth (Vilma Banky) is the adoptive daughter of Jefferson Worth (Charles Lane); her family died making a trek through the desert, where the elder Worth found her and made her his kin. Jefferson has done his damnedest to irrigate that desert wasteland via the Colorado River, employing (in part) engineer Willard Holmes (Colman) to help him build the system. Holmes falls for the lovely Barbara early on in the project in spite of his scorn for the arid wilderness she loves, but she might be more interested in worker Abe Lee (Coop). Nevertheless, Willard has bigger problems when his capitalist foster father James Greenfield (E.J. Ratcliffe) drives up prices in the new company town AND refuses to reinforce his dam despite threats of flooding. Thus Jefferson must start again elsewhere--if Greenfield doesn't decide to sabotage him.

There's nothing especially remarkable about the film's classic silent-movie plot strands (orphans; romance; evil capitalists; you must pay the rent/I can't pay the rent), but their combination is surprisingly harmonious. While the aforementioned love plot is slightly marginalized, it's an essential digression from the main event of high finance trying to oppress a fledgling desert community--we dip back into the mushy stuff just long enough to keep the film from becoming too abstract in its justice or too dry in its simple discussion. The Winning of Barbara Worth is smart enough to give itself an emotional axle on which fit the wheels of some latter-day western resonances, toiling masses yearning to be free, and a big special-effects finale the motivation for which I won't reveal here. It's not complex, but it's sound, and it keeps you watching even as you know it would never pass muster in these cynical times.

The filmmaking itself is pretty smooth. If we never get the visual epiphanies of a Murnau or a Kinugasa, we're always aware that director Henry King is a sharp cookie who conveys information without getting too blunt. King is all over panoramic shots of the desert, which register not as gratuitous calendar art but as judiciously chosen ambiance: although he grips his narrative line a little too closely, he's managed to embellish its contours without being either too showy or too dry. The director strikes a balance that perhaps could use a little ramping up, yet when taken on its own terms, it does more than just apathetically present the story. I suppose King and the movie aren't terribly ambitious in their aims, but they work overtime in trying to meet them--and the effort pays off in an immanently satisfying piece of fluff.

In its DVD premiere, The Winning of Barbara Worth receives an OK fullscreen transfer that betrays only-partially-successful attempts to digitally stabilize and crystalize the image. The Dolby 2.0 mono sound conveys the organ soundtrack with no fireworks, leading to a slightly flat sound that does the job but no more.-

1.33:1; English Mono, French Mono, Spanish Mono; CC; English, Spanish subtitles; DVD-5; 89 minutes; NR

Our odd-couple romantics get together under the flimsiest of pretexts. "Lady" Mary Smith (Merle Oberon) is the rich and cloistered daughter of a selfish presidential hopeful, sequestered in the family's Palm Springs residence to avoid a scandal that erupts after a furtive evening at a gambling club. Naturally, wanderlust strikes again, and she manages to convince the help to let her accompany them on a blind date with some rodeo performers. For no apparent reason beyond the requirements of the plot, Mary pretends to be just another maid, and when she's bowled over by "Cowboy" Stretch Willoughby (Cooper), she, um, marries him. Problem: she hasn't told him her real identity, instead cooking up some cockameemee story about supporting a father and four siblings. Which I think could be a problem later on.

My main annoyance here is that the heroine is so irretrievably stupid that she digs an enormous pit she could've easily avoided by fessing up before tying the knot. There's a lame set-up in which maids Katie (Patsy Kelly) and Elly (Mabel Todd) feed her dubious advice to help her snag Stretch, but it's clearly a mechanical circumstance designed to facilitate drama that wouldn't otherwise exist. There must always be a block to Dreams Come True to ensure that the coming-true of those dreams is sweet, but the obstacle here is so lame that it capsizes the rest of the movie. This little discrepancy also highlights another serious weakness: the fact that two people who have known each other for a day decide to get hitched. In an emotionally heightened film this wouldn't be a problem, but when coupled with the other major implausibility, we may simply deduce that Mary and possibly Stretch are completely out to lunch.

Supporting characters are equally intolerable. Mary's father Horace (Henry Kolker) is wheeled in periodically to speak of how much he needs the support of some guy named Henderson for the nomination; he's stripped clean of any qualities beyond that of a narrative device. Too, there's an unctuous life-force uncle named Hannibal (Harry Davenport) who helps mediate between the ambitions of daddy and the needs of poor Mary, but his creepy preciousness makes you wish that Mary would go it alone. Patsy Kelly gets a lot of mileage out of her brassy domestic role, but much of the good will she engenders is undone once we arrive at Stretch's ranch, with its baking-obsessed Ma Hawkins (Emma Dunn) and the rest of the folksy bunch. Nothing rings true, even as fantasy--it's the rumour of fun and pleasure (and common-folk solidarity) rather than an organic expression of such. Put The Cowboy and the Lady on your not-to-see list and forget I ever mentioned it.

MGM debuts the film on DVD as part of their Gary Cooper box set. The fullscreen, b&w transfer is perhaps a shade too soft, but it's adequate for H.C. Potter's nonentity direction, which does nothing to drum up interest in the image, anyway. Definition is sharp enough all around. Meanwhile, the Dolby 2.0 mono audio could've used a little more attention: it sounds like it's bouncing around an enclosed space.-

1.33:1; English Mono, French Mono, Spanish Mono; CC; English, Spanish subtitles; DVD-5; 92 minutes; NR

The first order of business is to demarcate the men, specifically polar opposites Benjamin Trane (Cooper) and Joe Erin (Burt Lancaster, also Vera Cruz's producer). Trane is a Southern gent ruined by the civil war who turns bounty hunter to rebuild his fortune and lift up his household. Erin, meanwhile, is an outlaw with a vicious gang and clearly in it for himself. They both find themselves in the midst of the Mexican revolution, hired--after a tense standoff with Juarist rebels--to escort Countess Marie Duvarre (Denise Darcel) through enemy territory to the titular port city. But as there is a secret cache of millions in gold riding with the Countess, the stage is set for the women to assume their rightful roles as equal-opportunity antiheroes. Duvarre, we discover, is a heartless schemer who wants the gold for herself, while thieving tagalong Nina (Sara Monteil) wants to swipe it for the sake of the revolution.

What's interesting about the movie is that it makes everybody a criminal. Trane's better judgment can't keep him from becoming a hired gun for an imperialist regime--he needs the money and can't be choosy about where it comes from. His female counterpart is Nina, who steals due to her poverty as well as for the revolution; necessity and moral outrage drive her to criminality. On the other side of the Griemasian rectangle is Joe Erin's unholy alliance with the Countess: despite their mismatch in social standing, they're in total accord concerning the non-value of human relationships and the primacy of selfish economic gain. The trick is for the would-be good people to navigate a world seemingly designed to thwart that goodness--and to maintain their ethics while keeping themselves alive.

There are times when Vera Cruz is more interesting in diagram than in actuality--the film either lacks the action set-pieces that raise the ante or downplays them to a puzzling degree. Still, it's a surprisingly contemporary piece, one that helps pave the revisionist road that Peckinpah would eventually take. Roland Kibbee and James R. Webb provide a snappy, vivid screenplay lacking the wince-making dialogue of the period's more dated scripts, and Aldrich manages to lend further credibility with direction that avoids heavy melodrama. It doesn't always thrill you but it never loses your respect, generally managing to take hold of your sensibilities for reasons that go beyond the common three-star genus. For their own Gary Cooper DVD collection, MGM has bundled their 2001 release of Vera Cruz. Configured in the odd aspect ratio of 2:1, the 16x9-enhanced presentation is a strange patchwork quilt of disparate sources, none quite up to snuff. By comparison, the Dolby Digital 2.0 mono sound has no significant defects. The only extra is the film's theatrical trailer.-

2.00:1 (16x9); English Mono, French Mono; CC; French, Spanish subtitles; DVD-5; 94 minutes; NR