The Story of G.I. Joe

I went to Indiana University in Bloomington for college, getting my journalism degree from the IU School of Journalism. The building was named Ernie Pyle Hall or shortened to 'the Pyle.' The school was named after famed journalist and war correspondent Ernie Pyle who rose to fame during World War II for his columns about the fighting in Europe and the Pacific. His exploits were given a feature film adaptation in a criminally forgotten war film, 1945's The Story of G.I. Joe.

It's 1942 in North Africa and inexperienced American troops are being pushed back on all fronts against the veteran German troops. A journalist and columnist from Indiana, 42-year old Ernie Pyle (Burgess Meredith) joins the American infantry on the front lines looking to tell their stories for the American people back in the states. The tide begins to turn though as the green Americans learn how to fight, pushing the Germans back and winning North Africa. As the war jumps to Italy, Pyle is right there with the troops, documenting everything he sees. Pyle keeps moving around but always seems to find himself with one infantry company with its commander, Captain Bill Walker (Robert Mitchum), and troops not only getting to know him but welcoming him in, the journalist becoming one of them. What does the war hold though? What awaits both Pyle and the American troops?

What an excellent movie. I think the biggest compliment I can give is that 'Joe' is one of the most authentic war movies ever made. It's not just authentic though. It's real, emotional and resonates long after viewing. Director William Wellman wants to tell the story of the grunts, the men on the front lines and does so without any huge displays of patriotism or heroism. These are just 20-somethings who just want to get home. The quickest way to accomplish that? Win the next battle and the next until they get to Berlin. We don't meet any staff officers or get a wider, bigger picture of the war. We get to know the troops, see them on the march, in combat, waiting and waiting. In ways that movies with a much bigger reputation/following didn't do, you really get the sense of what it was like being in the infantry in WWII.

That authenticity comes from Pyle's writings, two of his compilation books serving as inspiration for the screenplay (writers Leopold Atlas, Guy Endore, Philip Stevenson) that was nominated for an Academy Award. Pyle's columns were simple and straightforward, effective because he got a message across that left quite the impression. A relative unknown at the time, Meredith was cast as Pyle, bringing the man to life with a quiet, understated performance. He steals the movie in subtle fashion. Like Pyle's columns, Meredith isn't overbearing or trying too hard. Like good journalists, he listens and looks and waits for the story. He doesn't force it.

It's a feeling that reflects the entire movie. Nothing feels forced. A lot of ground is covered, but you don't feel rushed. There's a natural flow to the story. Overall, 'Joe' is ahead of its time. It was released the summer of 1945 as the war was winding down, but there's not an ounce of propaganda involved. It's just war. We see the effects of battle on the troops, some eventually cracking. We see the looks in the soldiers' faces as they look back on a fallen comrade. They don't talk about the power or glory of war. It's a dirty, nasty business and people die. It is a little touch, but the soldiers have beards and mustaches, the product of days and weeks up at the front without a rest. 'Joe' was filmed in a stark, minimalist black and white that leaves all the focus on the story. There are some beautiful shots throughout mixed in with all the dreary waiting and waiting for something to happen.

In 1945, Mitchum had been working for several years in Hollywood, usually with supporting roles. This is a supporting role, but my goodness, what a part. He was nominated for a Best Supporting Actor for his performance as Lt. (later Captain) Walker, the commander of C Company, 18th Infantry. With Meredith as Pyle, Mitchum's Walker provides the heart of the movie. A genuine friendship develops between the two men, one a 43-year old writer, the other a young officer trying to get his men through the war unscathed. Like his best parts, Mitchum is the picture of realism. There aren't BIG, LOUD moments but real, emotional ones. His scene with Pyle during the battle for Monte Cassino shows the wear and tear on him, the war stripping him down as he sees the casualties mount. It is a subtle, perfect scene, Mitchum showing all the talent we'd come to expect to see in the coming years.

One other performance is really worth mentioning, and that's Freddie Steele as Sgt. Warnicki, a hard-edged, tough NCO who all the men look up to, including Walker and Pyle. A former boxer who had a short-lived career in Hollywood, Steele is excellent. It's just a fascinating character. His main storyline is that he receives a record from his wife who's recorded his young son's voice, a voice he's never heard. Problem? He needs a record player, the payoff a heartbreaking conclusion. The other infantry include Wally Cassell as fun-loving Dendaro, John R. Reilly as Murphy, a washed-out pilot, and William Murphy as Mew, just trying to fill out his life insurance form.

There are too many moments to mention. There's combat -- Walker and Warnicki working up a bombed-out street to take out 2 German snipers -- and then the more personal, the company resting on Christmas in a brief respite from battle. I loved Mew trying to figure out what name to write on his insurance form. I loved Arab, the little mutt dog the company adopts. It all builds to a very real, very moving, heartbreaking ending. This is war seen through the eyes of one of the best war correspondents to ever write. An excellent movie, one of the best war movies ever made.

The Story of G.I. Joe (1945): ****/****
Rewrite of March 2009 review

Track of the Cat

John Wayne will always be remembered as an actor and a movie star. Fair? Yes. But during a long and distinguished career, he accomplished a lot of things behind the camera and backing movies as a producer, including starting his own production company, Batjac Productions. He starred in several of those movies -- Hondo, Island in the Sky, The High and the Mighty -- but not all of them. With Batjac backing, here's 1954's Track of the Cat.

It's the first heavy snow in the California mountains and the Bridges family preps for a heavy snowfall. Their ranch sits in an isolated valley with mountains ringing it all around, and as they prep for the weather hear the growls of an immense panther in the trees, not to mention its tracks around their cattle. One of their ranch hands speaks of a legendary black panther that's terrorized these mountains for years so could this be that animal? With their cattle at risk, brothers Curt (Robert Mitchum) and Arthur (William Hopper) pack food and supplies and bundle up to head into the wilderness to hopefully put an end to the panther. But as they head out, the rest of the Bridges family, including youngest brother, Harold (Tab Hunter), await their return back at the ranch. Under high tensions though, personal issues and long-held grudges come to the surface, threatening to tear the Bridges family apart.

The positives of 'Cat' are pretty evident. Working off a novel by author Walter Van Tilburg Clark, director William A. Wellman originally intended to shoot his film in black and white.....in color!!! Is your mind blown as much as mine? Most of the movie is shot in shades of white, gray and black. That way when we do see colors, they really do pop off the screen. The visual look of the film in general is a big success, even if there's too much use of pretty obvious indoor sets, thanks in great part to the filming locations in Washington at Mount Rainier. You know what looks like real-life mountains and not a mountain studio set? Real-life mountains! Also, composer Roy Webb turns in a solid score, a little over the top at times in telegraphing what's coming but still pretty good.

So we've got a real winner on our hands, huh? No, not really. Things play out like a Greek tragedy meets Russian classics versus Shakespearean dramas...except not that good. It is incredibly dark, which I usually eat up, but it's so heavy-handed and obvious that it loses any impact it could/should have had. That's one thing, but it also tries to be profound and existential with a message. Good and evil! What are you? Quasi-spoiler alert.....we never actually see the black panther terrorizing the mountains so we're led to believe that the panther is some sort of all-incarnate evil, right? It divides the family along very broad lines, all those bottled up emotions exploding outward in one big explosion. Then, out of nowhere we get these cutesy moments that are out of place and unnecessary. It can't find the right tone, going for an incredibly dark story Greek mythology would be proud but not getting there.

The cast itself is hamstrung by a script that writes in cliched, stereotypical and somewhat obvious parts. Mitchum makes the most of it as Curt, the brother who runs the ranch and made it what it is but he's also an intimidating bully to anyone who won't go along with him. Hopper is his complete opposite as Arthur, the good brother who reads poetry and tries to defend those bullied members of his family. Hunter looks surprised with big eyes a lot, his limited range crippling the part of Harold, the youngest brother who's had a girlfriend/friend, Gwen (Diana Lynn), move in with the Bridges. Gwen has caught the eye of Curt and basically thrown everyone for a loop. There's also the family patriarch (Philip Tonge), a preening drunk, and family matriarch (Beulah Bondi), a Bible-thumping, manipulative nut, and Grace (Teresa Wright), the only Bridges sister who hates her life, her family and everything basically. In a bizarre bit of casting, Carl Switzer -- formerly Alfalfa in The Little Rascals and wearing a ton of makeup -- plays Joe Sam, an elderly Indian supposedly over a 100 years old who works for the Bridges.

I didn't like this movie. I read about it for years and was at least mildly curious to watch it. Too much time is spent back at the Bridges ranch and not enough time with Curt out on the trail of the never-seen black panther. It tries too hard almost from the start and never really picks up any momentum over a 102-minute running time. Very disappointed.

Track of the Cat (1954): * 1/2 /****

Blood Alley

As a huge fan of John Wayne, I can still say that I didn't always agree with the man's politics.  He was a staunch Republican who didn't really care who he pissed off with his beliefs, and often enough these beliefs made their way into his films.  Some were good movies unaffected by a message delivered, like Rio Bravo, but others fall short partially because of these rather odd insertions.  In one of the more tumultuous times in American history in the 20th Century as the U.S. dealt with McCarthyism, Communists, and the Cold War, Wayne used his stardom in a handful of movies that now seem incredibly dated as they attempt to demonize Russia and Communists.

The movies range from straight propaganda like Big Jim McClain -- a movie so bad that it is good -- to others that were slightly...slightly...more subtle.  A not so thinly veiled at Communism and everything negative about it, 1955's Blood Alley isn't completely done in by the attempt, but it sure doesn't help. Lack of subtlety aside, it's just not a very good movie.  Through the 1950s maybe more than any other decade he worked in, Wayne was very much so a hit or miss star.  For every 'The Searchers' or 'Rio Bravo' there was The Conqueror where he played Genghis Khan or Jet Pilot, another dig at Russia and those clever Commies.  'Alley' certainly is a change of pace, but not a good one.

After two years in a Chinese Communist prison, ship captain Tom Wilder (Wayne) escapes with some unknown, outside help only to find he's being recruited.  A village under Communist control is seeking to escape from its life of misery, and all they can come up with is one desperate plan.  Wilder will hijack a ferry that travels up and down the rivers, transporting all 300 villagers to Hong Kong where they will be out of the grasp of the Commies.  The plan is basically suicidal, but Wilder for some reason agrees to help, maybe because of the pretty daughter (Lauren Bacall) of an American doctor working nearby.  The odds are against any sort of success on the mission, but given a crack at doing something right, Wilder takes his chance, odds be damned.

A story set in 1920s China is nothing new to movies, but one example -- a much better example -- kept coming to mind, 1966's The Sand Pebbles.  There was an epic scope, a huge cast, a worthwhile message, all working toward the same goal.  Here with Blood Alley, director William Wellman just never puts it all together although I question if all the composite elements were every really there to be molded.  There isn't so much a story as a series of scenes with Wayne and Bacall talking, followed by some efforts to obtain the ragged-looking ferry, and then an hour or so of said ferry going down the river to safety.  There's no conflict, no bad guys pursuing them, no real threat of danger so what's the point of it all?

In another case of the odd casting department, Wellman goes all out both in terms of actual casting but then how the Chinese are portrayed.  White actors Paul Fix, Mike Mazurki, and Swedish cutie Anita Ekberg all play...you guessed it, Asian characters, awful eye makeup and horrific accents included. I've asked before, and I'll probably ask again, but there weren't any Asian actors available for these laughably bad parts?  The few Asian actors actually cast, like Joy Kim as Susu, Bacall's maid, and Henry Nakamura as Tack, the ferry engineer, are definitions of what playing an Asian stereotype is in older movies.  These portrayals aren't offensive or anything of the sort, but you just feel embarrassed watching them just the same.

Wayne and Bacall would reunite a little over 20 years later in The Shootist for Wayne's last movie.  The duo showed off a perfect chemistry as the two pros played off each other like peanut butter and jelly.  Their scenes carried the movie, and it was a treat watching them do their thing.  Some 20 years earlier, that same chemistry just ain't there yet.  Wayne seems to be sleepwalking here and just doesn't deliver one of his better performances.  Bacall was as sexy as ever and is a great actress, but a poorly written part has her doing nothing but looking worried or distressed.  In The Shootist, their almost 15 year age difference wasn't an issue, but here Wayne looks much too old for the 31-yard old Bacall. There's also Wayne's address to the villagers, imploring them to think for themselves and not listen to "the old man"....cough Communism cough.  Subtle it is not, more like a sledgehammer landing.

As for winding this bad boy up, one more complaint.  With a story set in 1920s China, a fair amount of Chinese is spoken.  Makes sense to me.  No subtitles are there as the "bad Chinese navy" mumbles and screams through their lines (comic relief maybe?) or as any of the Chinese characters interact.  So on top of the long, unedited sequences of a ferry going down a river, there's also long shots of characters speaking in a language where no explanation is offered.  This is one of the few Wayne movies I'd never seen before, and I'm kinda glad it's out of the way now.  Pass on this stinker.

Blood Alley <---trailer (1955): */****

Westward the Women

I'll be the first to admit it, I don't really like female characters in westerns.  Talk about a blanket statement to start a review, ouch.  There are exceptions of course, but too often they seem added on to appease a part of the audience or give the hero someone to talk to and fall in love with when he's not shooting it out with banditos or Indians.  Maybe I should qualify my statement.  It's not that I don't like female characters in westerns, I don't like poorly written, damsel in distress characters who are basically helpless/useless and they're to be saved.

Not the case with 1951's Westward the Women, a movie that plays on that idea. The story is one that's been used by several movies since including Savage Pampas and Blindman with the basic background being that there weren't many women in the west -- single, eligible women at least -- as Americans moved west to start new lives.  'Westward' differs from most westerns though because of its honesty in dealing with women in the west.  The American west was an incredibly unpleasant place, and the weak just didn't survive.  The women that went looking for husbands, new lives, a second chance were tough because they had to be.

Working to make a California valley a suitable place to live, owner Roy Whitman (John McIntire) wants the men working the valley to be able to start families, but the complete lack of women prevent that from happening.  With a trail driver, Buck Wyatt (Robert Taylor), Whitman heads to Chicago where he recruits 138 women to travel west for husbands and a new life.  The women are from all cultures and walks of life, but the belief in Manifest Destiny is strong, and they decide to brave the incredibly dangerous trail to get to California.  Wyatt warns them of what is to come; Indians, horrific weather, low supplies of food and water, and even trailhands who might do anything to get with one of them.

What works best about this western from director William Wellman is its honesty in dealing with the subject matter.  Wyatt states that if they're lucky 1/3 of the women will actually make it all the way to California while the other 2/3 will turn around and go back or even die along the way.  And that's basically what happens.  Wyatt's trailhands end up leaving the wagon train because Wyatt kills one who raped one of the women.  Wyatt shoots him point blank three times in the chest without much warning.  And his estimation is pretty dead-on, many of the women don't make it.  So for honesty alone, this western gets points.

Taylor plays against his pretty-boy image as Buck Wyatt, a renowned trail driver who is going to do anything and everything to get this wagon train from Independence, Missouri to California.  This is a tough character who has to revel in being hated because that hatred from the women motivates them.  McIntire is all right in a smaller wasted part.  The treat here is the portrayal of the women.  We do meet a handful including Fifi Danon (Denise Darcel), a saloon girl with an eye on Buck, Patience Hawley (Hope Emerson), a rather large woman and widow who ends up becoming a second trail driver and mother to all the other women, and Rose Meyer (Beverly Dennis), a pregnant teenager shunned from her hometown looking for a second chance, among several others who get their chance to shine in a few scenes.

Out of necessity, these 138 women are forced to learn how to survive.  Only a handful know how to handle a wagon or shoot a gun so the others must improvise and learn how to on the fly.  They have to do this on the trail though so it's a bit of trial and error as they figure out what works and what doesn't work.  Throw in that Wyatt's cowboys basically try to rape them whenever they get a chance, and we've got a not so pleasant trip.  The cowboys eventually bail, forcing Wyatt, Whitman, one cowboy (Pat Conway) and Ito, the Japanese cook (Henry Nakamura) to protect the train, but when needed the women step up and shed their 'damsel in distress, please protect me' actions.  Refreshing to see in a western, women being treated as equals.

Of course, even with a movie trying to show the best of these women, there are still some odd moments.  Wellman often shows them bathing in creeks/rivers/waterholes with their dresses pulled up to their waists.  It seems like he's saying 'Okay, men, sorry you had to see this movie, but check out the scenery!'  There's also a fight late in the movie between two women -- that's right, a catfight! -- that doesn't fit the tone of the movie and seems tacked on.  The trials and tribulations do become a little repetitive in the second hour because really, what else can we throw at these women?

The build-up to the ending is handled well because in a nice twist, the women may be more excited to see their husbands to be than the other way around.  After four months on the trail, they insist Buck go into town and get them some nice things to wear so the men don't see them in their harried states (most still look pretty good to me all things considered).  It's an ending that surprised me in its sweetness, and in a way that doesn't come across as sappy or over-sentimentalized.  A western that has its flaws, but all things considered, it is different and for the better.

Westward the Women <----TCM trailer (1952): ***/****

Darby's Rangers

Released in 1955 to waiting audiences, Battle Cry ruined author Leon Uris' source novel.  I read the book and loved it, going into the movie with high expectations just because the book was that good.  Well, the movie ruined one of the best books I've read in years.  Sappy, overdone romances, and battle sequences that unceremoniously killed off characters (sometimes even offscreen).  Released three years later in 1958, Darby's Rangers used the tagline 'Nothing Like it Since Battle Cry!' and somehow found a way to make a similar but much, much worse movie.

It is based on the true story of the founding of the 1st Ranger Battalion, an American commando unit from WWII fashioned after British commando units that ended up taking part in France, North Africa, Sicily and Italy.  The story sounded like an easy home run for a studio, and a young, impressive cast was assembled to fill out the important roles.  Just last week I reviewed The Devil's Brigade, a prime example of the 'unit picture,' and I had high hopes for this one.  But instead of telling a hard-hitting, realistic look at this fighting unit, director William Wellman turns in a soap opera-ish story that almost completely disregards the actual development and fighting history of the battalion for a handful of wasted falling in love subplots.  In other words, an unofficial companion piece to 1955's Battle Cry.

Early in 1942, Army captain William Darby (James Garner) is chosen to lead a new American fighting force, the 1st Ranger Battalion, where regular Army soldiers can volunteer to be trained similar to British commandos.  Their job will be to lead beachheads and often work behind enemy lines, causing whatever havoc they can.  The volunteers go through arduous training in England and by the end only 600 of the 1,500 remain.  Their training is completed, and it's not long before the Battalion is shipping out to help join the war effort, including missions and fighting in North Africa, Sicily and Italy.

For several years, I've tried to track this movie down, one, because of the subject matter, and two, the casting.  Along with James Garner, there's Jack Warden as the tough sergeant, Edd Byrnes as a lieutenant fresh out of West Point, and enlisted men that include Stuart Whitman, Peter Brown, Murray Hamilton, and Adam Williams.  First off, Garner is almost a secondary character even though Darby is the commander and has his name in the title!  Right in the middle of his TV success with Maverick, Garner is completely wasted here, making an occasional speech or address to his men before disappearing off-screen.  Too bad because his scenes with loyal sergeant Jack Warden provide the few positive moments this movie actually has.

The cast does what they can with their characters, but they're hamstrung by the movie's inability to pick a tone.  Instead, it bounces all around from slapstick, broad, physical comedy to steamy romance to hard-edged battle scenes.  Pick one and go with it, but don't bounce among all three.  Byrnes, Whitman and Brown are all given romantic subplots -- the same way the platoon in Battle Cry did -- that grind the story to a halt, especially Whitman's and Byrnes' stories.  A quick 2-3 minute firefight is shown, then Warden's narration, then a 20-minute interlude as Whitman woos a British girl and Byrnes falls for an Italian girl he mistakes as a hooker...oops!  Repeat this several times, and you've got a 122-minute movie about soldiers falling in love.

Then there's the comedy angle which would have been more appropriate in a Marx Brothers movie or a Three Stooges short.  One character is introduced in a comedic fistfight full of over the top stunts and over exaggeration with funny sound effects and all.  Then there's a running gag with one private -- played by the director's son, William Wellman Jr. -- who always fall asleep on the go and falls off the back of the troop truck and has to run to catch up.  Pretty hilarious, huh?  Wellman Jr. also gets one of the most overdone theatrical deaths I've ever seen.  And on a non-comedic rant, there's also a drawling, ladies man of a private (played by Corey Allen) who is billeted with an English family, seduces the wife, forces himself on her, convinces her to leave her husband and then dies in a training exercise.  It's a despicable character who is dispatched quickly -- thankfully -- and serves no real purpose for even being there.

The one saving grace I figured could be the actual scenes of the Battalion forming and then going into battle.  The training sequences are handled well enough with a few nice montages, but the battle scenes are hampered by some very obvious indoor work.  Wellman showed with 1949's Battleground that indoor battles can work very effectively, but it doesn't click here.  Epic sequences of a battalion under attack is an actor or two with a few extras getting shot alongside them.  SPOILERS The battalion is all but wiped out in Italy, but we never see more than a handful of Rangers and the two or three German machine gun pits firing down on them.  END OF SPOILERS  Disappointed in the scale and lack of emotion brought up in these scenes.  What scenes do work are those of the battalion bonding, the quiet moments as they rest and recuperate, but they are few and far between.

After years of being unable to find this movie, the Warner Archive has made it available to purchase through a made-to order DVD.  It's a great system offering over 500 previously unreleased movies, but Darby's Rangers is a good example of doing your research before you buy.  Thankfully, I didn't buy this one.  It had a lot of potential but wastes a good cast and never makes up it's mind as to what type of war movie it wants to be.  A disappointing negative review for sure.

Darby's Rangers <----TCM clips (1958: */****   

Beau Geste

How gutsy does a director have to be to start a movie by showing the ending? I give any director with the cajones to do that points right off the bat. Opening the movie by showing how the story will end up can drive viewers away in some cases, but if handled well can make viewers even more involved with the story. After all, we now know how everything will end up, but getting there can be half the fun.

Director William Wellman pulls this off with his 1939 classic Beau Geste, a story of three brothers who enlist in the French Foreign Legion. The story opens with a relief column nearing Fort Zinderneuf, a far-off post near an oasis that came under siege by Arab tribesmen. But as the relief draws closer, they find the whole garrison massacred to a man, and the commanding officer dead on the parapets with a French bayonet through his heart. With no enemy dead anywhere in sight and no legionnaires to tell the story, the question arises; what happened to these 50 legionnaires?

After the cool opening sequence at the scene of the massacre, the story flashes back to 15 years prior where three brothers, Beau, Digby and John, have been adopted by a rich English woman, Lady Patricia (Heather Thatcher) The three orphans live the life of luxury, playing war games and playing pranks on each other and their 'cousin' Gussie, the heir to quite a family fortune. But the years pass and Lady Patricia receives a note from her long lost husband saying he'll soon return for the Blue Water diamond, the last thing of any value they own. Before he can retrieve it though, the diamond is stolen by someone living in the house. But who was it?

In hopes of removing suspicions from his younger brothers, Beau (Gary Cooper) takes the blame and enlists in the French Foreign Legion to avoid embarrassment for his family. But it's not too soon before brothers Digby (Robert Preston) and John (Ray Milland) join up too with their big brother. It's in the legion they come under the command of sadistic Sergeant Markoff (Brian Donlevy), who was humiliated at his last post and now seeks to redeem himself, no matter the cost even if it is his own men's lives. It is when Markoff finds out the Geste brothers may be diamond thieves that the real conflict arises, the sergeant splitting the trio up, Beau and John to Zinderneuf as replacements and Digby to another fort for mounted infantry training.

The French Foreign Legion is often presented as this glamorous, honorable fighting unit, but in just about every movie I can think of some unlucky company is getting massacred or abandoned at some far out post with no hope of outside help or survival. In Beau Geste, it's no different. The soldiers at Zinderneuf hope to lead a mutiny against Markoff, but that plan gets put on hold when the Arab tribesmen arrive en masse. The battle scenes are exciting from the start even if we know the end result. The desert outside Yuma, Arizona fills in nicely for the Sahara desert, oasis and all, with the set of the fort a perfect setting for the drama to unfold.

As for the cast, it would be hard to ask for a better one. As the title character, Cooper does what he does best, the sort of everyman role who is noble, honorable, and always looking out for those around him, especially his younger brothers. Preston and Milland round out the trio of brothers, Milland getting slightly more screen time and the love interest, and with Cooper provide the heart, the backbone of the movie. Their scenes together ring true whether it be with the comedic introductions or later in the movie when they've enlisted in the Legion. The three actors bring the characters to life, much like the three leads in another 1939 classic with a somewhat similar story, Gunga Din.

In a role he received a Best Supporting Actor nomination for, Donlevy has a great part as Markoff, the sadistic, half crazy sergeant who will drive his men to the breaking point and then keep on pushing. He wants his good name back and all the medals and privileges that come with a promotion, and as he sees it, it's all in grasp if he wins a significant battle, casualties be damned. Unfortunately for Donlevy, 1939 was the year of Gone With the Wind, Stagecoach, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, so he didn't get the win, but it's still one of his best parts. Also in the cast is a very young Susan Hayward as Isobel, the love interest who grew up with the Gestes but starts to fall for the youngest brother, John. Just some of the other legionnaires include J. Carrol Naish, Albert Dekker, Broderick Crawford, and Charles Barton.

Labeled as Hollywood's strongest overall year just for the sheer number of classics that were released, 1939 was quite a year for the movies. The old reliable 'they don't make 'em like that anymore' applies to any number of movies from that year, especially Beau Geste. It is good old-fashioned entertainment with an exciting story, strong and likable characters and some creativity in telling the story. With a DVD released just weeks ago, don't skip this one by. A true classic from start to finish.

Netflix review #7: Yellow Sky

In the late 1940s when westerns still portrayed good guys in white taking on bad guys wearing black, William Wellman's Yellow Sky was released in theaters in 1948. It's a western that seems more fitting for the late 1960s or early 1970s with its presentation of characters and their interactions.

In 1867, a gang robs a bank in a small town and high tails it out of town with a cavalry troop hot on their trail. Their leader, Stretch Dawson (Gregory Peck), takes them out onto the salt flats, 70 miles of desolate, uninhabited land, leaving the cavalry behind. After days of riding with little water, they stumble upon a ghost town called Yellow Sky. The only residents are an old man and his granddaugther. Dawson and Co. begin to wonder why these two are out in the wilderness? They find out quickly enough, there's gold in the hills. Tensions rise immediately at the mention of gold. Who's going to turn on who?

First off, the characters look like they're straight out of the old west. Their clothes are dusty, they stink, their faces show the wear and tear of riding in the sun, and they're all sporting beards. Remember, no barbers out in the desert. Too many westerns have the star in immaculate clothes that look newly-bought, but not here.

Second, there's no good guys anywhere in sight, just varying degrees of badness. Peck ends up being the closest to the hero as the gang leader who begins to question what his men are doing. Richard Widmark is his counterpart, Dude, the biggest villain in the group who's interested in himself and little else. The gang is willing to turn on each other at the drop of hat. Supporting cast as the gang includes Robert Arthur, Harry Morgan, Charles Kemper, Robert Adler, and John Russell.

Third, a female character is introduced but she doesn't feel like an add-on, she belongs. Anne Baxter plays Constance Mae, "Mike," the young woman living with her grandpa out in the desert. She can shoot and throw a punch as good as any man. Baxter presents a strong female character when so often westerns used women as the damsel in distress.

Released late in the 40s when film noir was so popular, this western could fit in that genre. Lots of pyschological undertones, shadowy scenes, and plenty of backstabbing. Yellow Sky is almost bored with the action scenes, but it works. A finale with a three-way shootout in an abandoned saloon isn't even seen, only heard. It doesn't even matter though, you'll be wrapped up in what's going on.

The DVD has the movie in its standard presentation, looking great with the black and white cinematography in the Death Valley filming locations. Shots of riders crossing a vacant desert as blips on the sand stand out as memorable, years before David Lean did similar shots in Lawrence of Arabia. Special features include three photo galleries, a trailer, and three trailers for other Fox Flix westerns.

Yellow Sky (1948): ***/****