ALONG CAME JONES

New Zealand Listener, Volume 17, Issue 424, 8 August 1947, Page 25

ALONG CAME JONES

{International-RKO Radio)

‘THIS also is a Western, but by comparison with The Outlaw it is as wellbehaved as a Quaker meeting. In no aspect does the Poe's =

story violate the strict mortar *cves the old West: the hero (Gary Cooper) is a simple, clean-living soul; the heroine (Loretta Young), though handy with a rifle in emergencies, is sweet and virtuous; the villain (Dan Duryea) is & mean type who comes to a well-de-served bad end. Yet in one important particular, Along Came Jones does depart sadly from tradition and thereby casts another shadow over this brand of entertainment. The trouble is that the hero isn’t nearly heroic enough. In these’ films we frequently encounter the peaceable cowboy who shuns violent action but who is eventually forced into it ‘through being mistaken either for a desperado or a valiant and upright sheriff. That was exactly the situation in the famous Destry Rides Again and other stories of that genre; while Gary,Cooper himself has so often played variations on the character of Mr. Deeds that he might almost be thought to have originated the phrase "I don’t want to fight, but by jingo if I do!" But for some reason Mr, Cooper, when he comes to make a Western for himself (Along Came Jones marks his debut as an independent star-producer), ignores this essential quality of the Western hero. He doesn’t want to fight-and by jingo, he can’t! In the end he doesn’t even get his man; he let’s a girl do that for him, the big sissy. Yes indeed sir, the West ain’t what it usta be. More seriously, Along Came Jones is at fault in that it can’t make up its mind whether it wants to be farce, parody or melodrarha; the film has good individual situations, but its changes of mood are as unpredictable and illogical as they are irritating. , This film, by the way, has an "A" Certificate ("Recommended by Censor. for Adults’). I don’t want to pursue that subject further, except to say that such a grading makes The Outlaw’s "U" Certificate seem even more extraordinary.