Dallas (1950)

Let's be realistic.

Don't Believe the Hype

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

The cast is perfectly chosen, and Warners' Technicolor production values are top-notch. It's one of Gary Cooper's best westerns of the 1950s, and that's saying a lot, because he made several good ones during this particular decade. What works so well is the interplay between Cooper and Leif Erickson who play men on opposites sides of the law that switch places. The story isn't as contrived as it sounds, and there is some excellent humor in the situations the performers mine like gold, without overplaying. Ruth Roman was never photographed more beautifully than she is in this picture, and it's easy to see why two strong-willed men would be vying for her attention. Raymond Massey is on hand as the villain, and this time he enacts wicked schemes with an equally villainous younger brother (Steve Cochran). Cochran's role is written with less comedy than the others, but even he manages to bring out the more humorous aspects of his character's situation without being too gimmicky. There are several brilliant sequences, but perhaps the best one involves Cooper, Cochran and a black cat on a nighttime street that leads to a killing.

The Bland and Take No Chances Decade of the 1950's Announced itself with Things like this. It was Things like this that Inspired Anthony Mann and Budd Boetticher to Reconsider the Western. This Movie is an Elite Effeminate Opposite of the Down and Dirty Wild West with its Dandy Costumes and Villains out of Central "Cliched" Casting from all of those B-Westerns.Just because it has an A-List Production and Gary Cooper in the Lead, don't expect anything Exceptional. In Fact, this is Unexceptional in just about every way. OK, there's the Color, Let's Give it that. But the Script is pure Corn Fritters, with Dialog that can Raise Howls, and Cowpoke Behavior Only Overlooked by the Kiddies.How about the Scene with the Cat? Or Perhaps, the "Exciting", Final Shootout that takes Place, wait for it, in a Living Room. In said Parlor, "Coop" carries on One of those Finale Contrived Conversations as He Belittles the Villain and Counts Down the Number of Bullets."Whadda ya want me to do, count three like in the Movies?"- Canino from "The Big Sleep" (1947).Silly, but Entertaining bit of Nonsense, but if You Like Your Westerns with some True Grit, Look Elsewhere.

Long before J.R. Ewing and some football cheerleaders made this Texas city popular, there was this colorful Warner Brothers western starring one of the greatest action heroes of Hollywood's golden age. Cooper plays a man wanted for arson who disguises himself as a marshal to unleash the real culprit. He convinces the actual marshal (Steve Cochran) to let him take over his identity and in the process, wins the love of Cochran's Mexican sweetheart (Ruth Roman). In going after the bad guys, he comes up against Dallas's most powerful citizen (Raymond Massey in a masterful performance) and taunts the bad guys in an explosive climax.If the idea of Ruth Roman playing a Mexican doesn't make you laugh (it seems that any dark haired beauty could be cast in Hispanic parts in this era) how about platinum blonde cult actress Barbara Payton as the wife of one of the bad guys and a group of actors who are supposed to play Texans but sound nothing like them? Two years before his Oscar Winning role in "High Noon", Cooper played a variation of the same role, and in studying the two films, you really can see the difference as to what makes a film tense ("High Noon's" clock is as much of a character as the human beings in the film, while "Dallas" has little or no tension at all) and what makes it simply routine. If it wasn't for the color photography or the presence of its cast (Cooper, Massey and Reed Hadley as Wild Bill Hickock), this could have drifted into the hundreds of "B" westerns of the time, entertaining in their own right but basically forgettable.

I fail to comprehend these other mediocre reviews. If you like Gary Cooper, this is one of his best roles. His gentle intensity to right a wrong is what made his career. "Blayde Hollister" comes to Dallas to take revenge against Will and Brian Malowe, who burned his Georgia farm and killed his family. An inept Marshall arriving from Boston gets in Hollister's way, attempting to arrest him when interrupted by a street shootout between Hollister and Wild Bill Hickock. The shootout is staged to get the law off Hollister, & he takes the "back East" Marshall under his wing to keep him alive in Texas, as they switch identity. That was a great beginning, and the picture holds up all the way through. Will Marlowe has positioned himself in Dallas to run for mayor, while his men steal cattle to force foreclosure on the Robles ranch. Brian Marlow, the younger brother, is a loose cannon that keeps getting in the way. Hollister consistently makes a fool out of him, and eventually tosses a black cat across his path, which was truly bad luck.Action may be a little "slow" by today's standards, but it is one of my top 10 favorite movies."That's your last bullet, Will."