Moviecut—Ramrod

source: Ramrod

Ramrod

Joel McRea (Dave) is asked by Veronica Lake (Connie) to protect her sheep-grazing land from town bully Preston Foster (Ivey) who wants it for his cattle. McRea recruits a gang that includes Don Defore (Bill) and they are heavily leaned on by Foster and his crew. Can McRea make a difference? The Ramrod referred to is McRea as Lake Veronica's central tough guy. Veronica herself is no shrinking flower in this. In fact, she's the opposite and ditches her glamorous looks. I only spotted one brief scene in which she was wearing make-up and she looked a completely different woman. The glamour role goes to Arlene Whelan (Rose) as McRea's girlfriend. Uh-oh, complications….looks like Lake is moving in on McRea as well. The cast are all good but unfortunately the film is chronically dull. Yawn, yawn….fall asleep….wake up….yawn…..nothing going on….fall asleep again…horses riding and a bit of shooting. There is nothing new about the story and it unfolds at a slow pace. Uninteresting. Shame.

Ramrod boasts a stellar cast with the eminently likable McCrea, the extremely pretty duo of Lake and Whelan, the inevitably crisp Crisp, the diddling De Fore, and the menacing Foster (perhaps the pick of the bunch). André de Toth is a very limited director, formerly Charlie Chaplin's cameraman. Sadly, that is an area where the varnish begins to crack from the outset: photography is mediocre. De Toth lets a potentially good film slip through his fingers by allowing the meandering script and McCrea's inexplicably dithering character to annoy the viewer. The aging sheriff, crisp ol' Crisp, wants it all done by the book in a place where everybody else - except likable ol' McCrea - is doing by all means other than the book. You can tell that that is not going to go down well. And it doesn't. To be honest, neither does the film. Which is a pity - I'm a great fan of McCrea and Lake but they share no spark here. They seemed to share more interesting chemistry in SULLIVAN'S TRAVELS

Nice guy Joel McCrea is torn between pint-sized femme fatale Veronica Lake and decent seamstress Arleen Whelan in this serviceable Western from the under-valued Andre De Toth. McCrea looks a little lightweight compared to Don Defore and Preston Foster, who stand out as a free-wheeling gun for hire with ambiguous intent and a rancher's heavy with a town under his thumb in a film that's brimming with bad guys. The plot twists and turns, but never quite takes off.

This was a surprisingly brutal western, more like a film noir from the late 1940s, with rough characters who shot first and thought later. Among those with the rough attitudes was the female lead, Veronica Lake, who was nearing the end of her short career. Without the makeup and long blonde hair, she didn't look that pretty. The good guys were played by Joel McCrea and Donald Crisp. Almost everyone in this film gets shot or killed. Many critics labeled this a B-movie but it sure had a lot of well-known actors for that label. Preston Foster, Don DeFore and Lloyd Bridges also star. The only actor who sounded B movie-ish was Arleen Whalen. Despite her good looks, I can see why she never made it to stardom. I like black-and-white but this was film that would have looked better in some nice Technicolor with the great mountain scenery that was featured.