Godard said something like that, right? Anyway, above is bombshell Arlene Dahl taking aim in the at least mildly demented Slightly Scarlet, one of seven films collected in an unusual and very welcome French box set honoring director Allan Dwan. Said box is the subject of today's Foreign Region DVD Report, at The Auteurs'.
If someone make a movie these days with a chick and a spear gun it would be a huge box office sensation 😀
I got into a late-period Dwan kick last year, and found them mostly remarkable. Not just for the remarkable clarity of the storytelling, but how confidently they mixed up genre without bumps or showing the seams. Slightly Scarlet’s sibling rivalry could have been lifted from Sirk (high praise, obviously), while the mob stuff works as both an offbeat thriller and political satire. (The source novel is Cain, not Thompson, by the way.) Politics are also under fire in Silver Lode, which one-ups High Noon–any film where the populace decides to take the word of stranger-come-to-town Dan Duryea against their local hero has clearly got McCarthy on the brain–by making the titular community the most settled and middle-class I’ve seen in a western, all picnic tables and picket fences. The River’s Edge, not part of the set I know, works as a noir, and sort of as a western, but not at all as a western noir.
Really fantastic stuff, and I came away thinking of Dwan as one of the masters, or at least closer than several others who’ve been placed on that pedestal.
Two posts, two sloppy repetitions of words. Neither remarkable or fun. Time to slow down while previewing.
Dwan is in serious need of a revival. Slightly Scarlet is a striking and highly entertaining film; I could say just about the same for all of the Dwan movies I’ve seent, not that I have seen as many as I’d like. Cattle Queen of Montana, for the record, is one of maybe five Ronald Reagan movies I can stand. He isn’t bad in it at all. As a child, Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm was a favorite and I bet if I went back I would still find it had merit.
One Dwan I would love to see for the title alone: Getting Gertie’s Garter.
Agreed with Bruce Reid about Dwan’s ability to mash-up genres effortlessly, which is a skill I also associate with Raoul Walsh and possibly also Michael Curtiz. Dwan’s films with Douglas Fairbanks are fabulous, and I also really like Frontier Marshall, which was included as an extra on a recentish release of Ford’s My Darling Clementine, because Ford obviously modeled his movie on Dwan’s.
Don’t forget you get two redheads for the price of one in Slightly Scarlet. 🙂 The other is Rhonda Fleming. (I have this on a crappy bootleg — how I’d love a properly transferred DVD!) John Payne does the male lead honors in both Slightly Scarlet and Silver Lode (a gripping Western). I really think Payne is underappreciated. He did some very fine work in his post 20th Century-Fox gritty noir/westerns/adventures, though I love a lot of his Fox work too. For me he’s one of the reasons why Miracle on 34th Street is so delightful. He doesn’t get in the way of the more colorful characters, but he definitely holds his own, especially paired up with that most striking screen presence, Maureen O’Hara. He’s very good in Sentimental Journey too (also with O’Hara).
@pvitari: Among other things, revisiting the pictures in this set just bolstered the hell out of my admiration for John Payne. He’s got this fabulous solidity to him, along with a droll, ironic sense. An under-appreciated screen presence, for sure.
I agree with a friend of mine who, upon seeing KANSAS CITY CONFIDENTIAL, decided that – owing to a resemblance both in their eyes and their delivery – Kevin Spacey is “a poor man’s John Payne.”
Glenn Kenny and Jaime, I couldn’t agree more re John Payne. Especially that “droll” sense of humor, whether he’s contemplating a beautiful blonde (or redhead) or a tough guy who’s about to punch out his lights. 🙂 He rarely looks at things straight on. He’s been a passion of mine for quite a few years…and on top of everything else, he had that beautiful singing voice. (I bet he and Dick Powell could have shared notes on getting stuck in light musicals when what they really wanted to do was much grittier stuff.)
I’ve had a lot of fun tracking down Payne’s early, pre-20th Century Fox musicals — fortunately TCM ran a bunch of them one day last year. 😉
But, back to Allan Dwan. A favorite quote, re Ronald Reagan, whom he directed in Cattle Queen of Montana and Tennessee’s Partner, becoming president: “Why not? He’s played everything else!”
Best Girl And A Spear Gun film: THUNDERBALL.