Sugarfoot (1951)

In Prescott we do not ask questions about other men. 1866, Jackson Redan (Randolph Scott) is a Confederate States Army veteran of the Civil War. He tries to rebuild his life by moving to Arizona Territory and arrives on a wagon train. His politeness and courtly Southern gentleman demeanour cause the residents of the town of Prescott to name him Sugarfoot. Among his new acquaintances are merchant Don Miguel Wormser (S.Z. Sakall) and saloon singer Reva Cairn (Adele Jergens). An enemy from Sugarfoot’s past, opportunistic Jacob Stint (Raymond Massey) has also moved to Prescott and pays unwanted attention to Reva. Redan rescues her, but afterwards treats her coldly. Wormser entrusts Redan with four thousand dollars which Stint then steals but Wormser forgives Redan. On business for Wormser, Redan makes a favourable deal, which earns him the enmity of Wormser’s rival, Asa Goodhue (Hugh Sanders). Redan reclaims the stolen four thousand dollars from Stint but is shot – just not fatally. Reva nurses him during his recovery, which thaws his attitude towards her. Stint and Goodhue continue to cheat the townspeople, so Redan finally learns to puts aside his courtliness … Every man is entitled to be careless once. This genial film has a lot of good things about it – well-tooled humour (the casting of ‘Cuddles’ Sakall is a sure indication), wit, a jaunty score from classic Hollywood legend and house composer at Warner Brothers Max Steiner and a terrific showcase for Jergens who gets to sing amusing lyrics and evidence feminist instincts. Real-life Virginia gentleman Scott is cursed with his character’s penchant for proper etiquette but is ultimately forced to face reality and his enemies and use his gun. Decent is not a good foundation for marriage. In between there’s a lot of funny writing and relationships particularly with Fly-Up-the-Creek Jones (Arthur Hunnicutt) and Mary (Hope Landin) who pushes Sugarfoot and Reva together despite the strains of their mutually exclusive financially independent intentions. Adapted by Russell S. Hughes from the novel by Clarence Budington Kelland, this is an easygoing, colourful western with a lot of satisfying moments. Directed by Edwin L. Marin. Out here you don’t fight to see what a true gentleman you can be, you fight to kill

Shoot-Out at Medicine Bend (1957)

Aka The Marshal of Independence. Thee has to talk like them and don’t forget it. Captain Buck Devlin (Randolph Scott) and cavalry troopers Sergeant John Maitland (James Garner) and Private Wilbur Clegg (Gordon Jones) all recently mustered out of the army, head to Devlin’s brother’s homestead to settle down and arrive just in time to drive off an Indian attack but just too late to save his brother. Faulty ammunition cost him his life. The three men set out for Medicine Bend to find out who sold the ammunition. The community also gives them all their funds to buy badly needed supplies. On the way however, they are robbed of everything – the money, their horses, even their uniforms. Fortunately, they happen upon a local church (who have also been robbed), and are given spare clothing. Devlin decides it would be a good idea to pretend to be Brethren while in town. They quickly connect the robbers, and later the defective ammunition, to Ep Clark (James Craig). Clark controls the mayor and the sheriff, and has his gang attack wagon trains of pioneers heading west and forces other local traders out of business. The men are up against it in their pursuit of the ruthless town boss … I prefer sour ‘bosom.’ It’s more refined. Directed by Richard Bare and amusingly written by John Tucker Battle and D.D. Beauchamp, this is standard western fare but it’s more fun than most with our leads gussied up as Quakers sorting out the decent wheat from the villainous chaff and doing the Robin Hood act.  Probably the only film you’ll ever see where that peaceable bunch do the necessary to end violence and it is of course interesting to watch Scott fulfill his contract at Warner Brothers while independently making classics of the genre under his own banner elsewhere. Garner says of the experience in his memoir, “It was always fun working with Dick Bare, and Randy Scott was an old pro, but the movie isn’t worth a damn. I was under contract, so I had to do what they put in front of me.” Angie Dickinson has a nice role as the storekeeper’s niece who is of course Scott’s love interest while Dani Crayne sings Kiss Me Quick in the saloon earning Garner’s attention. The title tells you all about how it ends. Get his partner. Give ’em a fair trial. Then hang ’em!

Gunfighters (1947)

We’ve either got to run this country with our guns or without ’em. We can’t go on with this halfway thing. In Texas, gunfighter Brazos Kane (Randolph Scott) decides to lay down his guns and rides out to visit his best friend only to come across the aftermath of his murder. When Brazos takes the body to the nearby ranch of the powerful Banner (Griff Barnett), the rancher accuses him of the murder and he is saved from hanging by diner proprietor Uncle Joe/Jose (Steven Geray) who remembers him from way back. He passes the murderer’s bullet to a beautiful ranching woman Jane Banner (Dorothy Hart). Banner’s other daughter, Bess (Barbara Britton), takes the vital piece of evidence, leaving Brazos to evade Banner and a crooked Sheriff Kiscaden (Charles Kemper) as he reluctantly takes up arms to prove his innocence discovering that Bess’ real love interest Banner ranch foreman Bard Macky (Bruce Cabot) is the likely culprit … I believe I’m more interested in you than anything that ever wore boots. This fine adaptation of Zane Grey’s 1941 novel Twin Sombreros has a zesty approach and a liveliness that reverberates through a cast well served with sharp writing from the pen of Alan Le May, the writer of The Searchers. Scott is dependable as the decent guy wrongly identified as a killer and then facing corruption and he has some excellent setpieces in a screenplay that’s filled with smart lines (including a running joke about food) and good character roles. Charley Grapewin is fun as Rancher Inskip and Geray as Uncle Joe/Jose is particularly well used to fill in the backstory on Brazos. The tension arises from Brazos’ refusal to wear guns but we know it’s only a matter of time and when it happens, gosh darn it, if he doesn’t go and say, Any time you feel lucky! like a prototype for Dirty Harry. He has a nice ruminative voiceover to top and tail the movie.  It’s beautiful to look at too, with CineColor cinematography by Fred Jackman Jr. It was shot in Andy Jauregui Ranch and Monogram Ranch in Newhall, California, Vasquez Rocks Natural Area Park in Agua Dulce, California, and Sedona, Arizona. One can only pray the horses were well treated because they are worked hard in this story. Hart and Britton are delectable as lookalike sisters:  Wonder what she wants?/Depends on which one it is! It’s an interesting narrative development to have Scott’s affections apparently transfer from one to the other, although Hart is utterly luminous like a fashion plate come to life in her feature debut, Britton served as the love interest in a lot of westerns of the period and the tussle between them is highly entertaining and more inventive than good twin/bad twin. Now you’d even ride off with a different man if you thought that would help. It’s produced by Harry Joe Brown with whom Scott would make a cycle of great films in the Fifties but this era is intrinsic to understanding how that one came about. Directed by George Waggner . I sure rode the heck out of that wild bunch

Decision at Sundown (1957)

You’d better leave town if you want to stay in one piece. After three years of searching and hell-bent on revenge, flinty gunslinger Bart Allison (Randolph Scott) rides into a sleepy Western town with sidekick Sam (Noah Beery) and only one goal in mind: to kill local roughneck Tate Kimbrough (John Carroll), who kidnapped his wife years ago. Both men have blood on their hands over the woman’s eventual suicide. Allison and Kimbrough, wracked with guilt but boiling over with bloodlust, are set to face off for one final confrontation. Tensions mount as sunset approaches, and the townspeople must choose sides before sundown just as Kimbrough prepares to wed local girl Lucy (Karen Steele) and sheriff Swede (Andrew Duggan) assists in surrounding the men in a stables… Doc, when you have been tending bars as long as I have, you wouldn’t expect so much out of the human race. With a screenplay by Charles Lang, director Budd Boetticher reunites with Scott for their second collaboration and the usually taciturn star plays a man unravelling at the seams. This residual question over his psychological well-being and his partial responsibility for his wife’s death tear at the reason for his quest and ultimately turn the tables on the town itself as the lines blur between notions of the hero and the villain. There are ugly digs at women and their predilections with Kimbrough’s mistress Ruby (Valerie French) the third point of this bad women triangle but this is compensated for by the precision of the action sequences, cut closely and distinctively, echoing the irony that underscores this unusual revenge western, offering no light relief to the brutal sense of justice at its core. What we remember is the detail of Randolph Scott’s face, etched with pointless obsession. I’ll tell you one thing, none of us will ever forget the day that Bart Allison spent in Sundown

Comanche Station (1960)

A man does one thing, one thing in his life he could look back on… go proud. That’s enough. Anyway, that’s what my pa used to say. When solitary cowboy Jefferson Cody (Randolph Scott) hears tales of a white woman living as a captive of the Comanche tribe, he rides deep into the tribe’s territory to exchange goods for her freedom. As Cody escorts the captive woman away, he learns that she is Nancy Lowe (Nancy Gates), and that there is a sizable reward offered by her husband for her return. Cody and Mrs. Lowe must brave ruthless bounty hunters led by Ben Lane (Claude Akins) greedy for the reward, as well as the now-warring Comanches, to make it to safety but the reward for Mrs Lowe is ‘dead or alive’ … If they cut our track, it’s gonna put us between a rock and a hard place. The final collaboration between director Budd Boetticher with writer Burt Kennedy and star Scott, this has all the tropes of their previous work, including the marvellous setting of Lone Pine and the Alabama Hills in California. Scott is taciturn, the action is confined and taut, the mountainous locale expressive, the jeopardy well maintained and there’s a marvellous final twist in this particularly twisty tale about very different men who think they can change their lives if only one financial element is altered. The final film in the Ranown cycle. A lot of money has a way of making a man all greed inside

Canadian Pacific (1949)

I’m sorry about your father. I’ve learned, though, that in this country if I draw faster, I keep living. Engineer Tom Andrews (Randolph Scott) is carrying out a survey for the Canadian Pacific Railway and finds a pass through the Rockies that will prove vital for its construction. He tells boss Cornelius Van Horne (Robert Barrat) he is resigning his post to marry Cecile Gautier (Nancy Olson) and it is she who informs him about the problems with fur trader Dirk Rorke (Victor Jory) who wants the railroad stopped because he controls the Indians and trappers and believes their livelihood is now under threat. Tom and demolitions expert Dynamite Dawson (J. Carrol Naish) are almost killed when Rorke uses explosives to sabotage their plans and Tom’s life is saved by construction camp doctor and pacifist Quaker Edith Cabot (Jane Wyatt). Then Rorke incites the local Indians to get involved… I thought you’d changed. But it takes courage not to kill and shed blood. Colourful account of the settling of the North West which doesn’t remotely relate to the truth, but, hey, who’s counting. The Indian attack is quite spectacular. Scott is typically robust and Olson is fine in her film debut while Wyatt has an unusual role, pleading for peaceful resolution amid the chaos. Written by Jack DeWitt and Kenneth Garnet and directed by Edwin Marin with beautiful location photography by Fred Jackman Jr shot in Alberta and British Columbia, at Banff, Lake Louise, Kicking Horse Pass, Morley Indian Reserve and Yoho Valley. There’s a rousing score by Dmitri Tiomkin. Do you want to die?! Then you’re either a fool or a saint!

Westbound (1959)

Well, they tell me they got a good man runnin’ this place.  In 1864 former Union officer, John Hayes (Randolph Scott) manages the Overland stagecoach company which transports gold to the North from California. Clay Putnam (Andrew Duggan), a businessman who’s quit working for Overland and is secretly loyal to the South, is intent on robbing the coaches. Hoping to heist the treasure as a way to revive the Confederacy, Putnam also has a grudge against Hayes, since his wife, Norma (Virginia Mayo), was once involved with Hayes. It seems everyone in this small Colorado town is now out to help the South …  You walk out of this house and you go out the way you came in… with nothing but the clothes on your back! The sixth in the western partnership between Scott and producer/director Budd Boetticher this does not belong to the official Ranown cycle and is written by Bern Giler (as opposed to Burt Kennedy) from a story with Albert S. Le Vino. It’s not the typically taut film you’d expect from that team but it’s notable for the killing of a small child and two striking female performances by Mayo and Karen Steele (as Jeanie Miller). Scott is solid as ever. That’s a lot of woman!

My Favorite Wife (1940)

I bet you say that to all your wives. Nick Arden (Cary Grant) has waited seven long years after his wife Ellen (Irene Dunne) disappeared at sea before finally marrying Bianca (Gail Patrick) but wouldn’t you know it the day of their marriage (the same day he has Ellen declared dead), Ellen suddenly reappears.  At the insistence of Nick’s mother (Ann Shoemaker) she flies up to Yosemite to the hotel where Nick is about to embark on his honeymoon with Bianca. Nick is overjoyed but hides her reappearance from Bianca and becomes insane with jealousy when he learns that Ellen has had a companion on the island – handsome Stephen Burkett (Randolph Scott) whom Ellen has known as Adam…  I came here with my wife… hum… my bride really. Now my wife, not my bride… my wife… Why should I bore you with details? Loosely based on Tennyson’s Enoch Arden, this screenplay of remarriage by Leo McCarey and husband and wife team Bella and Samuel Spewack (with some uncredited additions by director Garson Kanin) is a high point of screwball. Grant’s character is a variation of the character established in The Awful Truth directed by McCarey, who produced this and upon whom Grant’s screen persona is somewhat based. Dunne is a delight as his flighty wife, also re-teamed with Grant, while Scott is ideal as the he-man. The scene between Dunne and the shoe fetishist salesman is a hoot and when she passes him off as Stephen, not aware that Nick knows precisely who Stephen is, it works brilliantly. Her Virginia drawl as the children’s nanny is as convincing as it is irritating to Bianca.  Patrick is fine as the flinty Bianca but Granville Bates steals his scenes as the judge. With Van Nest Polglase doing the design, Robert Wise editing and Rudolph Maté on cinematography, this is classical Hollywood at its smoothest. Remade as Move Over, Darling. Something’s come up. My wife

Buchanan Rides Alone (1958)

Tom Buchanan (Randolph Scott) is a mercenary returning from Mexico to West Texas intending to start up a ranch of his own. He stops in a community run by a family called Agry – they own everything. When a young Mexican (Manuel Rojas) kills one of them in revenge for raping his sister the brothers wreak their own revenge while Buchanan winds up killing the villain and helping the young man whose wallet has been emptied and his life spared. Then the three Agry brothers cross and double cross each other by alternately threatening to hang and ransom him for their own ends.  Buchanan attempts to manipulate the situation … This is the fourth Scott collaboration with Budd Boetticher and the second written by Charles Lang (adapted from a novel The Name’s Buchanan by Jonas Ward). It’s perhaps not as iconic as the first two in the cycle, which were written by Burt Kennedy, and it stands out for its drama taking place in a settlement, but it has many of the tropes and shares some of the settings in the series (typically, Lone Pine and its environs). This skirts the edges of comedy – maybe even satire! – as it grapples with the western form. Scott is good in this wittier than usual entry. Beautifully shot by Lucien Ballard, a regular part of the team.

Seven Men From Now (1956)

Isn’t that one of the best titles ever?! Burt Kennedy’s first film script was intended for John Wayne – and his company made it – but he did The Searchers instead and it wound up being Randolph Scott’s story:  that of Ben Stride, a sheriff who blames himself for his wife’s death during a Wells Fargo robbery who sets out to avenge her death, tracking down each of the men responsible. He hitches a ride with a married couple whose wagon is stuck in the mud and becomes intrigued by the husband’s story (Greer, played by Walter Reed) while falling for the wife Annie (Gail Russell). They encounter Stride’s former nemesis Bill Masters (Lee Marvin) and his sidekick Clete (Don Barry) who decide to make off with the gold haul from the robbery when Stride has accomplished his mission. There is an encounter with hungry Indians, an ambush and an admission that the haul transported by Greer is the takings from the robbery. Shot in the beautiful landscape of Lone Pine, this is an elemental revenge western. Marvin is a choice, charismatic villain and the tragic Russell is wonderfully vulnerable as Scott’s romantic foil. Scott would perfect this laconic, grimly righteous hero who always finds himself in a shootout in an empty arena at the film’s conclusion. He insisted on Budd Boetticher as director and this became the template for a further six films they would do under Scott’s own production slate with producer Harry Joe Brown. For more on this film you can read my essay on Offscreen:  http://offscreen.com/view/final-showdown.