Dodge City (1939)

Dodge City (1939), directed by Michael Curtiz.

A cattleman (big hat, lots of cattle) and his pals don't want to take law jobs cleaning up Dodge, but when a little boy is killed-- that's just too much. The villains murdered the boy's father earlier; this is actually a bit brutal for an action/adventure western of this type. It has rich detail, but still more fantasy gloss than the more realistic titles from John Ford, Raoul Walsh or Howard Hawks.

Errol Flynn is -- again -- in pursuit of Olivia de Havilland, who hammers him unmercifully during the first three-quarters of the film. As usual, they have good chemistry.

Here is a photo of the two actors (holding hands!) during a tour. I imagine she is saying something like "I care about you but you need to dial down the crazy...":

http://watershade.net/public/dodge-city-errol-and-olivia.jpg

Ann Sheridan wears dance-hall outfits and sings, but doesn't have much else to do.

The ending is a bit abrupt: the bad guys should have ridden out of rifle range.

Misc notes:

Max Steiner score. Photographed by Sol Polito.

Available on Blu-ray. The image is often quite good, and the whole disc a great upgrade over the DVD, where the Technicolor registration was so off you could see prismatic fringes on every edge.

http://watershade.net/public/dodge-city.jpg