Wyoming

Just watched this enjoyable Wallace Beery western for the very first time and really enjoyed it! Wallace Beery is...well, Wallace Beery, as usual. Also starring Marjorie Main (Ma Kettle) and Ann Rutherford (straight from 'Gone With the Wind'). Great story with colorful characters. I only wish they had FILMED it in color, especially when you consider the breathtaking Wyoming scenery.

After the Civil War, former Confederate soldier 'Reb' Harkness (Wallace Beery) and his sidekick Pete are train robbers. They barely get away with their latest robbery. Pete steals the money and horse, and leaves Reb behind. Reb encounters fellow Confederate Dave Kincaid who saves him from the pursuing Union soldiers. He joins Dave on his journey to Wyoming where his daughter Lucy Kincaid (Ann Rutherford) lives. Dave is murdered by cattle rustlers and Reb intends to return the favor. General Custer keeps showing up.

I like Wallace Beery. He has so much charisma and presence. On the other hand, Dave needs more as the instigating character. He's a bit of a nothing personality. I'm going with the revenge plot when out of nowhere, General Custer shows up. Reb and him do have a fun initial meeting but he's more a distracting name. I kept waiting for Reb to take out this gang, but the movie has a lot of filler. All in all, I still really like Beery and that helps.

Beery had great chemistry with youngsters and it always showed, as it does in this entertaining film. His inability to stay a "bad guy" seemed rooted in his DNA, although, at times, he tried to be a rascal. He only ended up being a lovable rascal. Audiences went to Beery movies knowing they would be entertained, and he probably worked well past his due date because of his popularity and box office draw. In this film, he is already 65 years old, and he kept performing for another ten years or so -- MGM did not want him to retire.

The supporting characters never missed a beat in moving the plot along, and the audience stays engaged throughout the film. But it's Beery's interactions with some of the other cast members (such as the boy at the ranch) and Marjorie Main, in a unique role where the hero falls for her almost immediately.

Beery and Main have great chemistry, too. This is a great film and it works for adults and well as for younger people. A true film classic from 1940.

MGM put a little more money into this western, unusual for a studio that was not really known for its westerns with shooting out in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. This is a strictly Wallace Beery vehicle with Beery's scene stealing persona going full blast.

Beery is another lovable rapscallion of an outlaw who with sidekick Leo Carrillo has to flee Missouri with the army after him. Arriving in Wyoming, Beery gets himself involved with the struggles of local ranchers against Joseph Calleia playing one of his usual snake oily villains.

Calleia's keeping him the army off balance by stirring up the Indians and the army is headed by General Custer. Paul Kelly plays Custer as a courtly gentleman, not as dashing as Errol Flynn. Still one of the few films that does have him as a complete hero.

Beery is also given his usual kid to play against with Bobs Watson and Marjorie Main as well. Beery and Main were suited professionally as a team although like 99% of the people whoever knew him, Marjorie despised Beery in real life.

A really well staged battle with the Sioux climaxes Wyoming. For some reasons this film is not well known and I think if MGM had sprung for color it would have a better reputation. I think if you see it, if you're a western fan you'll agree.

Looking at WYOMING, one might believe it a B version of George Stevens' classic oater, SHANE. Of course, MGM proudly stated that they never produced B movies, but they did produce *ahem* lead features of lesser quality like the Andy Hardy series and those of Wallace Beery, who played amiable cusses in all his movies in this period. Add in familiar faces from other MGM movies of the period like Henry Travers, Bobs Watson, Anne Rutherford, Stanley Fields -- at RKO, Fields was the Beery lookalike -- Marjorie Main and gigantic, beautiful mountains on every vista, even though the ground that everyone stands around is as flat as a pancake -- the high-minded viewer might be tempted to draw invidious comparisons.

The fact that SHANE wouldn't be shot for more than a decade also argues against this being a retread, but there are some amazing parallels to this story of a feckless wanderer set in the Johnson County Wars. Well, there is nothing new under the sun and less than that in westerns.

Director Richard Thorpe doesn't have to use his patented method of getting cheap performances out of mediocre actors here -- when they flub the line, change the camera angle -- and the whole thing is shot in standard MGM Gloss, with the credited DP, Clyde De Vinna being their Exotic Locale cameraman. In short, there's little that's wrong with this MGM programmer. If you enjoy Wallace Beery's mugging -- and I do -- you will enjoy it. However, you'll have to squint a bit, especially if you have recently seen an Alan Ladd movie.