Review of Dodge City

Dodge City (1939)
7/10
An enjoyable and leisurely Epic Western with Flynn as a wagonmaster turned sheriff
21 July 2021
Errol Flynn stars as Wade Hutton , a roving cattleman who becomes the sheriff of Dodge City . His job : to run a ruthless outlaw : Bruce Cabot and his gang out of town . De Havilland serves as his love interest , as she did in many former movies . It's Errol Flynn In His Greatest Role . . . A picture for every red-blooded son and daughter of the stars and stripes. West of Chicago there was no law!. West of Dodge City there was no God!

It deals with the classic feud between good guys and bad guys , and it gets Western action , crossfire , a love story , spectacular action scenes on a locomotive and being quite entertaining . There is an enjoyable romance when Flynn falls for De Havilland who is really reluctantant at the beginning due to she blames him of brother's death. It's a big budget film with nice actors , technicians , production values and pleasing results . At the ending takes place a disastrous clash between Bruce Cabot, his band and Errol Flynn with unexpected consequences . The film is totally set in Dodge City which was one of the major railhead cattle territories , it was a booming depot , including cattle drives and shipping some Longhorns by railroad and meat markets in the East . With the numerous presence of homesteaders the towns prospered , stabilized and grew , its lawabiding citizens decided to discourage the troublesome cattle trade with his transient cowboys and early requested the cattlemen to drive their herds elsewhere . Well played by Errol Flynn who starred various ¨Sword and Swagger¨ films and was superstar of Warner Brothers swashbucklers . Errol is still nearly at his most agile and deft style . Errol Flynn was 40 when he made this movie , but his wild lifestyle had diminished his health and made him less able to perform his own stunts, as he had in earlier films . Previously , Flynn made his best swashbucklers and played successes as ¨Captain Blood¨ , ¨Adventures of Robin Hood¨, ¨The prince and the pauper¨ , ¨Sea Hawk¨, ¨The private lives of Elizabeth and Essex¨ , ¨Gentleman Jim¨ . Flynn also performed some Westerns as ¨Dodge City¨, ¨Virginia City¨, ¨Santa Fe Trail¨, ¨They died with their boots on¨, ¨San Antonio¨, ¨Silver River¨. And wartime movies as ¨Objective Burma¨, ¨Norhern pursuit¨, ¨Dive Bomber¨ , ¨Edge of darkness¨ , ¨Desperate journey¨.

The motion picture was competently directed by Michael Curtiz displaying impressive shootouts , great action scenes and entertainment enough . Michael Curtiz concludes a great legacy that included dramas, adventures, comedies, musicals, horror, historical films, police ... and a few westerns . He was an expert in strictly American film Noir genre and in drama as proved in ¨Bright Leaf , Flaming Road , Passage Marseille¨ and of course ¨Casablanca¨ . But also was specialist on adventure genre as ¨Adventures of Robin Hood , Sea Hawk ,Charge of the light Brigade , Private lives of Elizabeth and Essex¨ and Western as ¨Proud rebel, Dodge city¨and of course ¨Los Comancheros¨ . After directing about 180 films, the Hungarian director Michael Curtiz was already 73 years old, when he was called to lead what would be his last film and among all these pictures , many of them form already part of the great classics of cinema as ¨Angel with dirty faces¨ . Rating : Good , above average . Worthwhile watching .
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