I think with this film John Wayne's casting potential was stretched to its very limit. After his image was established, he could never have been been given a role as a heel like Pittsburgh Markham.
Pittsburgh and his buddy Cash Evans (Randolph Scott) start out as a pair of happy-go-lucky coalminers who on a night on the town where Wayne tricks Scott into going a round with a heavyweight prizefighter (almost like the way Crosby used to bamboozle Hope in the Road Pictures)they meet up with Marlene Dietrich. They got the hots for her, but she has eyes for Wayne and Wayne is now determined to better himself. And he does and his methods are pretty shady. They even include marrying into a wealthy family, but he wants to keep Marlene on the side. That's where she gets off.
And at some point in the picture Randolph Scott gets tired of Wayne's arrogance and the way he's treated Marlene and that climaxes in the only screen fight John Wayne ever lost. It's not as long a fight as they had when they duked it out in The Spoilers, but it's exciting and Randy puts him down for the count.
The three leads are fine and also watch for a nice comic turn by Shemp Howard. Marlene and the Duke were winding up a long term relationship that began on the set of Seven Sinners. Supposedly she found Wayne something of a philistine in terms of education and tried to get him to read Proust and Zola and other European novelists. Wayne wasn't having any of that and they went their separate ways. Marlene tried the same with George Raft and he too told her that they ought to call it a day.
One thing that people do not realize is that back in her native Germany, Marlene Dietrich was considered a traitor for appearing in American films, especially ones like these that started and ended on a patriotic note.
Another reviewer said this was a western moved east, maybe because the male leads were so identified with westerns. Personally I think it has elements of Edna Ferber in it. Lot of similarities between this and films made from her novels.
Pittsburgh and his buddy Cash Evans (Randolph Scott) start out as a pair of happy-go-lucky coalminers who on a night on the town where Wayne tricks Scott into going a round with a heavyweight prizefighter (almost like the way Crosby used to bamboozle Hope in the Road Pictures)they meet up with Marlene Dietrich. They got the hots for her, but she has eyes for Wayne and Wayne is now determined to better himself. And he does and his methods are pretty shady. They even include marrying into a wealthy family, but he wants to keep Marlene on the side. That's where she gets off.
And at some point in the picture Randolph Scott gets tired of Wayne's arrogance and the way he's treated Marlene and that climaxes in the only screen fight John Wayne ever lost. It's not as long a fight as they had when they duked it out in The Spoilers, but it's exciting and Randy puts him down for the count.
The three leads are fine and also watch for a nice comic turn by Shemp Howard. Marlene and the Duke were winding up a long term relationship that began on the set of Seven Sinners. Supposedly she found Wayne something of a philistine in terms of education and tried to get him to read Proust and Zola and other European novelists. Wayne wasn't having any of that and they went their separate ways. Marlene tried the same with George Raft and he too told her that they ought to call it a day.
One thing that people do not realize is that back in her native Germany, Marlene Dietrich was considered a traitor for appearing in American films, especially ones like these that started and ended on a patriotic note.
Another reviewer said this was a western moved east, maybe because the male leads were so identified with westerns. Personally I think it has elements of Edna Ferber in it. Lot of similarities between this and films made from her novels.