Product Details

• Actors: Errol Flynn, Alexis Smith, S. Z. Sakall, Douglas Kennedy
• Directors: Ray Enright
• Format: Color, NTSC
• Subtitles: English, French
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: Warner Home Video
• Run Time: 76 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 2.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B001EW4LR6
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #146,741 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

The star who brought frontier justice to Dodge City and San Antonio heads for the wide open spaces of Montana in this adventure saga about a bitter range war. Errol Flynn plays an Australian transplant looking to buy grazing land. But the cattle-raising locals won't sell to interlopers, especially one they consider the most contemptible excuse for a human being ever to cross the Great Plains: a sheep rancher. Flynn's San Antonio co-star Alexis Smith is a flame-haired beauty with an eye for the newcomer...until she learns his occupation. In time, she'll put aside her disdain for the handsome stranger. So will all the others. Or else.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Flynn taking it to the bank, June 11, 2011

By 

Dr. James Gardner (California) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Montana (DVD)

By 1950 Errol Flynn was in deep trouble. His best days long behind him - Captain Blood (1935), Major Vickers (1936), Robin Hood (1938), George Armstrong Custer (1941) - and apart from "Objective Burma" (1945), he'd been making one undistinguished film after another (and would be until 1957 when he made "The Sun Also Rises" and "Too Much Too Soon").

Between 1940 and 1945 Flynn was trying to reinvent himself, as something less than a swashbuckler and more of an actor. In his autobiography he said - "How deep the yearning is of an actor who has been stereotyped, who has that sword and horse wound around him, to prove to himself and to others that he is an actor." But he was unable to succeed and resigned himself to turning out films to pay his bills. In his autobiography he said "Mostly I walked through my pictures...I had huge expenses now that had to be met."

Flynn always hated the westerns - He said "Putting me in cowboy pictures seemed to me the most ridiculous miscasting." But "San Antonio" (1945) had been his biggest box office hit, his other films had done poorly, and Warner Brothers were anxious to cash in. So they gathered the cast (Alexis Smith, "Cuddles" Sakall) from "San Antonio" and made "Montana".

Flynn plays an Australian (which he was) Sheepman looking for grazing land in Montana. Alexis Smith (1921-93) plays a cattle woman. She appeared in more than 50 films between 1940 and 1993, winning a Tony in 1971 and an Emmy in 1990. She made 4 films with Errol Flynn (e.g., "Gentleman Jim", "Dive Bomber") and 2 with Bogart ("Conflict", "The Two Mrs. Carrolls"). I think her best performance was in "The Young Philadelphians" (1959) with Paul Newman. Unfortunately Smith seems to be going through the motions, and the chemistry from prior films just isn't there.

Ever so cute S.Z. "Cuddles" Sakall (1883-1955) plays a peddlar. We know him best as the character Carl, who appeared as a head waiter in "Casablanca" (1942) and then made a career reprising the role in films like , "Christmas in Connecticut" (1945) and "Lullaby of Broadway" (1951). He made more than 100 films between 1916 and 1954.

Flynn claimed that Cuddles was one of the two best scene stealers in the business. He called him "a funny old guy" and said "I always liked him for his screwy, mushy personality."

Douglas Kennedy (1915-73) plays the bad guy, a cattleman determined to keep the sheep at bay. He appeared in over 100 films, mostly westerns and detective thrillers, and usually as the heavy. He transitioned to TV in the 50s where he starred in his own series "Steve Donovan, Western Marshall" (1955-6) and later in "The Big Valley" (1965-9) as Sheriff Madden. Unfortunately Kennedy is hardly the type of bad guy to be feared, so there is no real danger for Flynn.

Ray Enright (1896-1965) directs. He made more than 70 films between 1921 and 1956, mostly for Warners, and mostly westerns. Sad to say, "Montana" was probably his best known film.

Cinematographer Karl Freund (1890-1969) does a terrific job and the pohotography is one of the few good points in this film. Freund won an Oscar for "The Good Earth" (1937) and has the distinction of being nominated twice in a single year (1941) for a color ("Blossoms in the Dust") and a black & white ("The Chocolate Soldier") film. Freund worked with German expressionists F. W. Murnau and Fritz Lang and filmed such classics as "Golem" (1920), "The Last Laugh" (1924), and "Metropolis" (1927). His other film credits include "Dracula" (1931), "Murders in the Rue Morgue" (1932), and "Pride and Prejudice" (1940). It was Freund who developed the 3-camera film shooting introduced in the TV series "I Love Lucy" which became the standard for all TV shows ever since.

The NY Times' Bosley Crowther called the story "awfully obvious, conventional and dull" and said "Warners and Mr. Flynn should feel sheepish."

1950 was a good year for films with Oscars for "The African Queen", "A Place in the Sun", "Streetcar named Desire", and "An American in Paris". The top grossers included "Cinderella", "King Solomon's Mines", "Annie Get Your Gun" and "Sunset Boulevard". Westerns were popular with films like "Ambush", "Broken Arrow", "The Gunfighter" and "Winchester 73".

If you're an Errol Flynn fan you'll want to miss this film, and remember Flynn as the classic swashbuckler from the 30s, or the frustrated actor trying new roles in the 40s, or the mature professional from the late 50s. This is Flynn taking it to the bank and the rest be damned. Of course, if you're like me, even a poor Errol Flynn film is worth watching, and this is one of the two films in which Flynn sings, so it does have some benefit.

BTW - Most of Flynn's westerns are inferior to his swashbuckling films or even his war films, but the western "They Died with Their Boots On" (1941) is Flynn at his best.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Flynn Shears Thru Again!, February 7, 2009

By 

Dufus (Lom Poc, California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Montana (DVD)

This is just an average western, where Errol Flynn appears tired. The script is ok and the acting is fair. It's not up to San Antonio by any means. Wish it was in widescreen. BTW, the sheep were great.

3.0 out of 5 stars several sections of silence in the black and white movies, August 9, 2009

By 

R. Bagula "Roger L. Bagula" (Lakeside, Ca United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Montana (DVD)

The title feature is packaged with three black and white westerns
which came up as silent movies in my cutting.
The Errol Flynn feature "Montana' in is color
and is about one of the historical range wars
between cattle herders and sheep herders in Montana.
Some people blame at least part of the desertification
of the middle east on sheep and goat herds,
so there is some weight on the side of the cattlemen
in country that is dry/ semiarid where grass doesn't grow back
with every rain storm. In Southern California goat herds are used to control brush
on public lands. The western is unremarkable except that Flynn
plays an Australian because of his accent.
I kind of liked the movie but as I said the quality of my
dvd which came from the public library was bad.