The Iron Mistress

This was Alan Ladd's first film for Warner Bros. after leaving Paramount, where he had been one of that studio's great stars for more than a decade, and Warner Bros. mounted a big production for their new star. He plays the flamboyant frontiersman and adventurer Jim Bowie--gambler, real estate entrepreneur, knife-wielding duelist, and lover of beautiful southern belles. Ladd arrives in New Orleans to tend to his bayou family's lumber mill. Voskovec (as the famed naturalist and painter James Audubon) befriends Ladd and introduces him to high society, including the beauteous but totally self-centered Mayo. Ladd, the naive country boy, falls hard for Mayo but must con...