Dark Command

1940, Movie, NR, 91 mins

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This film, with a budget of three-quarters of a million dollars, was the most expensive and successful film of Republic's early years. The story is set in Kansas in 1859 where the political tensions were rising due to the slave state/free state issue. Wayne is the two-fisted cowhand from Texas who is elected the marshal of Lawrence. Pidgeon is the famed William Cantrell, a scholarly teacher who becomes a guerrilla leader, making the raids on Lawrence, supposedly on behalf of the Confederacy. It is Wayne's job to track down Pidgeon and his bunch, but he only gets them after they have burned the town to the ground in a spectacular scene. Trevor is the Dixie belle, caught in the middle of a love triangle with Wayne and Pidgeon, who ends up with Wayne. Rogers is Trevor's trigger-happy younger brother, while most of the humor is provided by Hayes as Wayne's dentist sidekick. The film is well directed by Walsh, one of the westerns' most unappreciated directors. Stuntman Canutt pulls off one of his most famous stunts by having four men and a team of horses slung off a bluff into a lake. This action sequence and many inferior imitations brought down the wrath of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, an intense storm of protest almost equalling the outcry produced by THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE (1936). The film earned Oscar nominations for art direction and original score. leave a comment
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Dark Command
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