South of St. Louis (1949)

Pretty Good

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

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

"Coroner Creek" director Ray Enright's Civil War-era western "South of St. Louis" ranks as both entertaining and distinctive for the three Texas cattle ranchers (Joel McCrea, Zachary Scott, and Douglas Kennedy) who share a bond of kinship as stout as brotherhood. This heroic threesome is symbolic because their communal ranch, called 'The Three Bell Ranch,' is burned down by the villainous likes of Victor Jory and his raiders. Jory's Luke Cottrell is equivalent to the murderous William Quantrill who committed atrocities galore. Kip Davis (Joel McCrea of "The Virginian"), Charlie Burns (Zachary Scott of "Mildred Pierce," and Lee Price (Douglas Kennedy of "Dark Passage") all wear one small bell attached to their spurs. The first glimpse we get of this trio in action occurs they corner obnoxious Yankee guerrilla fighter Luke Cottrell in a Brownsville, Texas, saloon. Kip refuses to slap leather with the evil Cottrell. Nevertheless, he sheds his gun belt and batters Cottrell into submission with his fists before he banishes the brigand from Texas. The American Civil War that spawned Cottrell shatters the solidarity of our three protagonists. Lee decides to enlist in the Confederacy and dons a gray uniform. Meanwhile, Kip and Charlie enter the gunrunning business. The color of their hats reflects the morality of their characters. For example, Lee wears a white hat, while Charlie sports black headgear. Kip comes up in the middle with a brown one. Indeed, Lee is virtue incarnate; Charlie is malevolent incarnate, while Kip stands somewhere between them. During all these early shenanigans, we see Kip and his future wife Deborah Miller (Dorothy Malone of "The Big Sleep") delay their marriage plans indefinitely because the three men aim to punish Cottrell for his act of arson. "Humoresque" scenarist Zachary Gold and "The Big Country" writer James R. Webb have drummed-up a historical oater that chronicles the way that the Civil War fractures the tight bond among the three. The other recurring character--introduced later--that takes a fancy to Kip is red-haired, dance-hall warbler Rouge de Lisle (Alexis Smith of "Gentleman Jim") who dresses seductively and knows how to belt out a song. Confederate sympathizers will like the way that the rebels triumph over Union. This rugged western shoot'em up is a mite more complicated because it thrusts Kip into a predicament. Charlie and he are running guns across the Texas/Mexico line dressed up in stolen Union outfits when Confederates attack them. Initially, Kip refuses to return fire, but Charlie convinces him otherwise. German lenser Karl Freund of "Metropolis" is responsible for the exemplary cinematography.

Lot of different things going on in this enjoyable civil war type western. The plot is set in motion in the opening frames when a ruthless raider named Luke Contrell (I guess he's the union version of William Quantrill) burns out the Three Bells ranch in Texas. The Three Bells is run by 3 friends, Joel McCrea, Zachary Scott and Douglas Kennedy (I hope you don't mind my convention of referring to the characters by the actor's names, it's just easier and apart from Contrell, the names don't mean much) who set of for Brownsville to get even. Contrell carries out his raiding under the protection of the union army, which prevents our hero, Joel McCrea, from doing much more than beating him up and telling him to leave town.Our three heros -- it's weird seeing Zachary Scott as a hero -- are now kind of shiftless and looking for what to do next. Kennedy decides to join the Confederation and fight in the open. This is kind of different, the movie is set during the Civil War and one of the hero's decides to join the confederation and doesn't feel the need to talk about protecting his way of life. The union army might protect Contrell, but they don't like him much, and the commander offers to buy McCrea a drink after he beats up Contrell -- but McCrea don't drink with Yankees. McCrea and Scott get mixed up in gun running and take to the trade, blockade running guns from Mexico to the confederates.The romantic sub-plot is that a saloon singer played by Alexis Smith has set her cap for McCrea and McCrea's gal, Dorothy Malone, has followed Kennedy into fighting the good fight as a nurse (the film just never really gets into the nitty gritty of the politics of the civil war). I found the romantic business, usually something of a drag in the avg McCrea feature, to be pretty interesting and not quite so ham handed as is often done.The production values are not bad, the acting is pretty good, the story interesting and a little different. If you love westerns, and I presume you do if you've read this far, you could do a lot worse that this movie. I enjoyed it quite a bit.

Joel McCrea, Douglas Kennedy, and Zachary Scott are partners in the Three Bell Ranch in Texas as the Civil War starts. When war does come it splits the partners up. The ranch is raided by Victor Jory and his cutthroats and the partners are wiped out. Kennedy opts for enlisting in the Confederate Army. McCrea and Scott decide to go into gunrunning to make enough money to re-stock the ranch. McCrea makes enough, but Scott likes the profits and he wants to keep on gunrunning.As you can see the three partners all have different agendas. In fact everyone in this movie is working on his own agenda. The female leads Alexis Smith and Dorothy Malone have a hankering for McCrea. Victor Jory rides for the Union the Confederates and for himself. Bob Steele who's a slimy sort that Scott recruits in the gunrunning business has his own plans.Believe it or not it all jells into a very nice plot and is good entertainment. Joel McCrea was his usual stalwart hero as was Douglas Kennedy. Zachary Scott was no better than he had to be on any occasion. It's a good western and I wish it was shown more often.

Joel McCrea, Zachary Scott and Douglas Kennedy are friends that get separated during the civil war. McCrea is going to marry Dorothy Malone, but he leaves her to find the outlaw that had destroyed his ranch.(Victor Jory). He ends up meeting Alexis Smith (great as always) who falls in love with him. Colorful and entertaining, directed by Ray Enright who was very good in this type of films.