A time waster I only watched for the cast; it is an
interesting look at how not to make a John Wayne film.
Wayne plays the real-life frontiersman James Smith. He
clashes with a group of underhanded traders who start selling arms to the
Natives in 18th century colonial America.
The star has bags of charisma, but the script has far too
much clunky expositional dialogue, and he works better with less to say. The
John Wayne character is already coming into shape. A loner, a leader, brave,
intelligent, always does the right thing. No ambiguities. Does not answer to
anyone
The two main co-stars are suitably slimy. George Sanders is
an incompetent martinet colonial soldier, while Brian Donlevy is the
businessman so unscrupulous, he will even trade with the British AND the
Indians. When I say Indians, I mean white guys in Mohican wigs. Smith and his
posse black up for a revenge attack on the Indians, but this is historically accurate.
The supporting characters are forgettable. Claire Trevor as
Janie MacDougall is the never-going-to-happen love interest of Smith, and the
best thing about Wilfrid Lawson as "Mac" MacDougall is his "och
aye" Scottish accent.
Competently but unimaginatively filmed, The First Rebel
suffers from a lack of action, and peeters out into a stiff courtroom drama.
Interestingly, it was banned at first in the UK by the
Ministry of Information for portraying the British in a bad light.
No comments:
Post a Comment