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...":
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:
In this story the good guys are ex-Confederate and the villains Union.
A pre-Casablanca (1942) moment: the battling saloon singers, the selections this time being "Marching Through Georgia" vs "Dixie".
The huge ensuing bar fight used every stuntman in town.
I love the helpful townspeople: they let the killers run wild but form an instant lynch mob when one is in jail.
I recall that when drinking with Guinn 'Big Boy' Williams ("Tex") you were at risk of real bar fights.
Trivia: the country/rock band Pure Prairie League is named for the fictional temperance organization in this film.
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.