DODGE CITY

New Zealand Listener, Volume 2, Issue 27, 29 December 1939, Page 19

DODGE CITY

(Warners) Dodge City, let us hasten to explain, has nothing whatever to do with motor cars. It’s all about trains, and sheriffs and bandits, and how the law came to the Wild West. It contains battle, murder and sudden death, a roughhouse in a saloon that out-brawls anything ever done before, a last-minute escape from a blazing mail train, and at least three Technicolour sunsets. But no Indians. Only in the lack of Indians does Dodge City fall short of being a typical Western, though that is obviously not what it set out to be. You don’t usually waste Technicolour and Errol Flynn on a typical Western (at least, Warner Bros. don’t). We suspect that Warner Bros. had. something very special in mind-something that would symbolise the indomitable spirit of the West, etc. What they call an "epic," in fact, Instead they have achieved a ripsnorting melodrama of cowboys and bandits which, if it misses greatness, at the same time escapes dullness by being so whole-hearted about everything, whether it is a gattle-stampede or merely a meeting of the Prairie Ladies’ Purity League addressed by, of all people, Alan Hale. Mr. Hale gets our first preference among the cast, followed by Guinn Williams, Bruce Cabot and Victor Jory. As an actor, Errol Flynn is a mighty fine cowboy. Olivia de Havilland is pretty enough to be her own excuse, though we question whether she’s the prairie type. Ann Sheridan is also in the film, presumably because they wanted to be able to put her name on the posters, Dodge City is nearly two hours of pioneering, and very good fun if you still like that sort of thing; but what with the Centennial and all, we rather feel that we've got almost enough pioneering of our own on our hands at the moment without having to go all the’ way to Dodge City for it.