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Montana

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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.

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.

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.

"Montana Territory...1879...where cattle was king...where the law was a gun...and the men who drove the great herds up from Texas made the rules. They were hard men...they had to be hard to keep alive..." And not just the men. Cattle queen Maria Singleton (Alexis Smith) is not about to let a bunch of stinkin' sheep onto prime cattle land. She and Rod Ackroyd (Douglas Kennedy), equally prejudiced against mutton, run things in this section of Montana Territory. It's not going to be easy or pleasant when Morgan Lane (Errol Flynn) shows up on horseback with a lot of sheep following him. All he wants is a chance to prove that cattle and sheep can share the same land profitably. While he's trying to do this, sometimes with humor, sometimes with his fists, men will die, the sneaky Ackroyd will get his, a great stampede will take place and Maria will find out that at least some sheepmen don't stink as much as their sheep.

This routine oater is competently enough made, but there's not an original idea in either the script or the direction. At some point Raoul Walsh is said to have stepped in to help with the directing. Perhaps that's why there are some scenes involving Errol Flynn that have a little juice in them. At 41, Flynn looks his age. He may not be entirely convincing in a fistfight, but for the most part the movie shows him using more charm and brains, not brawn. His looks hadn't yet fallen victim to booze and gravity. That would come in the next two or three years. In The Master of Ballantrae, 1953, he looks as tired and worn as Roger Livesey looks corrupted and drunk, but Livesey was wearing make-up. The Fifties saw Flynn as just another alcoholic and the punch line of jokes. His last movie, released in 1959, the year of his death at age 50, was something called Cuban Rebel Girls.

For those who enjoy S. Z. "Cuddles" Sakoll, this shtick-carrying character actor, so cute...so wobbly...so predictable, shows up early in the movie and then disappears. For those who enjoy music, we hear Celito Lindo warbled around a nighttime campfire and Old Dan Tucker sung by rough cowboys in close harmony. For those who enjoy the bizarre, we even have Errol Flynn strumming a guitar and singing "Reckon I'm in Love"...

"I met a certain someone who makes me feel that way.
And ever since I met her I'm a singin' in the saddle
`Skidoodle diddle daddle' all the day."

Flynn smiles while singing this, but he must have needed a drink afterwards.

If you're interested in the eternal struggle between cows and ewes, you can't do much better than
The Sheepman, a sly western with Glenn Ford and Shirley MacLaine.

Warner brothers made some splendid Westerns in the 'forties and many of them -They Died with Their Boots On, Dodge City ,San Antonio -starred Errol Flynn but both studio and star were a long way away from the top of their game with this altogether more pedestrian picture made in 1950.It is little more than a B feature and gives the air of having been trimmed down from an altogether more ambitious original concept.

Flynn plays the amiable but tough Aussie Morgan Lane who aims at setting up a sheep ranch in the heart of Montana Territory ,where cattle is king .The two big local ranchers Ackroyd (Douglas Kennedy ) and Maria Singleton (Alexis Smith )are vocal and violent in their opposition to the scheme but ,ignorant of his plans at first, she unwittingly leases a large tract of land to Lane with whom she has fallen in love.When the other prominent local rancher ,Forsythe ,who is striving to broker a deal with Lane and the smaller ranchers ,who are undergoing economic hardship ,is killed by one of Ackroyd's henchmane the scene is set for the final conflict between the cattle and sheep factions .
The main plus point of the movie is the luscious Tecnicolor photography of Karl Freund which makes full use of the rugged outdoor scenery .Flynn and Smith make attractive leads and their is a good support turn from Paul Burns as the grizzled town "character" Tecumseh Burke .he major deawbacks are listless direction which is especially obvious during a rushed and curiously undramatic finale which is handled in very perfuntory fashion .The movie is brief ,clocking in at just 76 minutes and this is reflected in the way the script does not develop either characters or incident fully.
By no means unwatchable,this is simply routine and unlikely to appeal to other than the usual audience for the Western