FILMOGRAPHY: MOVIE LISTINGS

Lake does a Western! Mistake or Diversity.

It's a fine but forgettable plot and performances to match. really feels like it needed more dirt and villainy to sell the drama or just be a bit more realistic.

Lake does a good job of being the tough lady and prolly has the best character and agency in the plot. I've watched it a few times and the plot is just too generic to stick with you but it's a decent watch and should have been the start of another era for Lake.

Veronica Lake in a Western!

I just recently finished reading Veronica Lake's biography, and in it she states how much she loved Westerns. As far as I know this is the only Western she ever starred in. It is a fairly good one. One point of interest is that it was directed by her second husband Andre De Toth. Apparently the cast was not very enamoured of him, and perhaps the performances would have been better if there was a better working relationship between him and the cast. Veronica is once again teamed with Joel McCrea, but this is no "Sullivan's Travels".

The film is about a land dispute between Veronica's character Connie (interesting how the character has Veronica's real name), her father, and a shady character named Frank Ivey played by Preston Foster. Veronica's character is fed up with Ivey and her father's unwillingness to stand up to him. In fact the only other people in the whole town that will dare are McCrea and the sheriff played by Donald Crisp. McCrea becomes Connie's "ramrod". Apparently this means that he is her chief ranch hand and enforcer so to speak. The film is entertaining, but it could have been better. McCrea's performance is good but I couldn't help feeling that he was sort of a poor man's Gary Cooper. It is worth seeing though if only to see how Veronica Lake performed in this type of film genre.