The Westerner enjoys a big reputation, due to two persons: Gregg Toland and Gary Cooper. I am a great admirer of Walter Brennan, but what he did in The Westerner was the same thing he had been doing for years, without adding anything which could have justified a new Oscar for him. Nobody can believe the first sequence in which Cooper escapes being hanged by the infamous Judge Roy Bean by making believe he is a friend of Lily Langtry. This could have worked, had Wyler treated the whole picture as a parody, which in a certain way it is. The climax, in the empty theater is still more unbelievable than the first sequence. I have read somewhere that Cooper did not want to make this picture, and it was Wyler that convinced him. The trouble is that Wyler does not appear to have been convinced himself, except in the dramatic even tragic sequences: the spectacular fire, for example. It is a pity that the charming Doris Davenport retired after three films; she showed promise in The Westerner. Anyhow, it has the wonderful photography one always expected from Gregg Toland, and is terrifically entertaining.
Review of The Westerner
