Edward G. Robinson -- with his frog-face, his embroidered waistcoats, and his single earring -- totally owns this film in the role of Louis Chamalis, self-made saloon king of San Francisco at the time of the Gold Rush. Brian Donlevy also makes a notable impression in a classic black-hat role, as Louis' cool-headed enforcer, and Joel McCrea, in a change from later laconic Western roles, is a whimsical young poet who proves a surprisingly 'good loser'.
And where the film scores, for me, is in these unexpected touches; characters almost never do either what social convention or, more subtly, cinematic conventions would lead us to expect. "Marriage? That must have been somebody else..." The final scenes -- in which the villain defies all plot expectations by sparing the hero's life, winning the heroine's hand, and then throwing it all back in her face with a raised hat and a roughness that spares her his knowledge that he is walking to a certain, ugly death -- are nerve-shaking in their intensity. (And far from being a plot cop-out, this is the final fruition of depths to the character that have been developed throughout: Louis Chamalis, over whom only his 'Swan' has any influence at all, yet who cannot be content with the bargain that yields him her body and not her heart, dominates as the antihero of the whole picture.)
The script is good, and Walter Brennan (whose role was vastly expanded during shooting from what was originally a three-day bit-part) in particular makes the most of it. Miriam Hopkins is perhaps more effective (and probably more enjoyable) as Louis' cynically pragmatic equal than she is as the redeemed 'fallen woman'; McCrea is unexpectedly engaging as the naive but philosophical youngster who, somewhat late in the day, crosses her path. Much play is made of the San Francisco fog, while "I Dream of Jeannie (with the Light-Brown Hair)" is, to my taste, somewhat over-used in the soundtrack.
I found the film a good one, and much more rewarding than biographer Todd McCarthy's dismissal of it as "nominally entertaining in a bland way" ('Howard Hawks: The Grey Fox of Hollywood') would suggest.
And where the film scores, for me, is in these unexpected touches; characters almost never do either what social convention or, more subtly, cinematic conventions would lead us to expect. "Marriage? That must have been somebody else..." The final scenes -- in which the villain defies all plot expectations by sparing the hero's life, winning the heroine's hand, and then throwing it all back in her face with a raised hat and a roughness that spares her his knowledge that he is walking to a certain, ugly death -- are nerve-shaking in their intensity. (And far from being a plot cop-out, this is the final fruition of depths to the character that have been developed throughout: Louis Chamalis, over whom only his 'Swan' has any influence at all, yet who cannot be content with the bargain that yields him her body and not her heart, dominates as the antihero of the whole picture.)
The script is good, and Walter Brennan (whose role was vastly expanded during shooting from what was originally a three-day bit-part) in particular makes the most of it. Miriam Hopkins is perhaps more effective (and probably more enjoyable) as Louis' cynically pragmatic equal than she is as the redeemed 'fallen woman'; McCrea is unexpectedly engaging as the naive but philosophical youngster who, somewhat late in the day, crosses her path. Much play is made of the San Francisco fog, while "I Dream of Jeannie (with the Light-Brown Hair)" is, to my taste, somewhat over-used in the soundtrack.
I found the film a good one, and much more rewarding than biographer Todd McCarthy's dismissal of it as "nominally entertaining in a bland way" ('Howard Hawks: The Grey Fox of Hollywood') would suggest.