Dfree52
I came across this on YouTube after viewing a website that highlighted women in westerns from the 40s and 50s.I picked this at random and was very surprised at the result.In Technicolor, the ravishing, raven haired Yvonne DeCarlo is Lorena who runs and is the star attraction of her own saloon. Drifter Jonathan Hart (Rod Cameron) wanders in and almost immediately gets into a brawl with Blackie (Sheldon Leonard) and his gang.***POSSIBLE SPOILER ALERT***When Lorena tells Jonathan she doesn't allow fighting in her place, the sparks between the two start to fly.Each time Lorena winds up and slaps Jonathan...Jonathan grabs her and lays a passionate kiss on her. This continues for a while, Lorena is both angered and aroused and is carried off to her boudoir.A shotgun wedding of sorts ensues, but Jonathan is sent to prison by his rival for Lorena, Blackie. Jonathan returns 6 years later and finds that he's a daddy of a little girl, Lorena is her mommy. Jonathan is now faced with the prospect of instant fatherhood and coping with the ultra independent Lorena, who can take care of her self and their child. There's music, dance,and some comedy...plus a climax near a waterfall. Along for the ride are Andy Devine and Fuzzy Knight. The tone reminds one of the Taming of the Shrew. There's action at the conclusion and a reckoning of Lorena and Jonathan, while Lorena is over his knee.Odd mix of western action, music, comedy and perhaps 1945 political correctness, but it works. Cameron and DeCarlo are great together and remind you of John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara in The Quiet Man. Oh yeah, the climax of this movie will remind you of Wayne/O'Hara in McClintock! too.
weezeralfalfa
Poor beautiful Lorena(Yvonne De Carlo) spends most of this rare,for the times, Technicolor B western scowling and throwing things at tall handsome Johnny Hart(Rod Cameron) because he seems to have no heart for her. The romantic relationships in this wacky western make no sense at all! Johnny rides into town, a stranger. Brassy Lorena, who owns and stars in the town saloon, decides he's the right man for her after he brazenly grabs and kisses her in public, not once, but in a series, with a slap from her after each. Soon, she announces to her acquaintances that she's going to marry him. Only trouble is she forgot to ask him if he's agreeable. Horrors, he wouldn't marry her if she were the last woman on earth! Why? Because she's a low class saloon entertainer, albeit a very beautiful and colorful one. Never mind that he's an escaped convict, which she doesn't know about quite yet. Well, Lorena pulls a gun on Johnny and tells him he's gonna marry her, like it or not. He acquiesces. They have a very simple 'shotgun' wedding: no guests, no kiss, just angry looks and words. She spends the rest of the film being furious at Johnny, throwing things at him, even using him for target practice. Yes, hell hath no fury like Lorena scorned!After Johnny returns from a 6 year further prison sentence(which seems more like 6 mins.!), they talk about their future. Johnny asks her if she's going to divorce him. She answers: not if that would make him happy. He discovers he has a 6 year old daughter(Mary Ann). At first, he's not interested in her, but gradually she grows on him after he takes her to his ranch to get her away from the saloon environment. Johnny decides he's going to settle down and raise his daughter, but who is his wife going to be? He decides to invite his old straight-laced girlfriend Shella, who presumably has been waiting for him to reappear all these years! Shella arrives at his ranch with her loud-mouthed spinster aunt. Unfortunately, Johnny's friends thought he meant that he was going to ask Lorena if she would come live with him, which they communicate to Lorena. She sells her saloon and rides out, ready to live with Johnny. Confusion reigns when the various parties meet at his ranch. In the confusion, Blackie, Lorena's long time shady boyfriend, comes and abducts Mary Ann, hoping to lure Johnny into a lethal showdown. He takes the bait and rides after Blackie. Half the town follows a little later. Johnny and Blackie have a long scuffle and guess who wins.Then, Johnny has to rescue Mary Ann, who has crawled onto a precarious log overhanging a large waterfall.After all this trouble, Lorena still has angry words for him when they meet, so he gives her a good paddling over his knee. Mary Ann says that must mean he loves her, and Lorena agrees after a few minutes. Shella has seen enough and pulls out of the romantic competition. End of story. The closing background ballad ends with "If you're gonna be bad, you'd better be good".Well, the plot may be unbelievable, but if you like plenty of colorful man-woman verbal and physical fights, this is the right film. On the whole, it's a fun movie. Johnny also gets into several scuffles with men. The inclusion of Mary Ann as a major part of the second half of the film serves to soften all these negative adult interactions. The inclusion of character actors Andy Devine, Fuzzy Knight, and Frank Lackteen serves a similar purpose. The contest between Lorena and Shella plus her aunt over Johnny very much reminds me of the John Wayne western "Tall in the Saddle", released just the previous year. In that film, a wild cat brunette, rather like Lorena, and a straight-laced blond from the East plus her talkative spinster aunt are both interested in Wayne near the end of the film, and again the wildcat brunette wins.The long spanking scene at the end is what some people most remember about this film. Earlier, Mary Ann had gotten hers. Somewhere, she had gotten the idea that a spanking was a sure sign of love. In the '30s through the '60s, occasionally a Hollywood film would include the male lead spanking the female lead. Some notable examples are seen in 'McClintock", "Across the Wide Missouri" and "Kiss Me Kate" and an "I Love Lucy" TV episode. There were many more, most viewable at You Tube, if interested. In contrast, women spanking men has pretty much been relegated to deviant sexual portrayal films. In some cases, the spanking was an immediate response to a slap or other physical violence by the woman. In other cases, as in the present film, it was a response to a long bout of shrewish behavior. In still other cases, it related to a specific non-violent act by the woman. With the woman's lib movement of the '60s, this sort of thing pretty much disappeared from conventional films and TV.Yvonne spent her early Hollywood years mostly playing temptresses or cowpoke gals in low budget films. Her few A films came later, in "The Ten Commandments" and "Band of Angels", where her dark Sicilian looks were especially appropriate for the plot.As of 2015, this is now available on a no frills DVD and on You Tube.
dbdumonteil
Very atypical western,verging on slapstick farce ,with the longest slaps and kisses scene ever filmed .She's the boss:Yvonne De Carlo runs the saloon and she reigns over men till a stranger comes .So begins an offbeat story ,part western ,with plenty of chases,part musical (even the daughter pulls her little tune ) ,part comedy .There are lots of domestic quarrels on an eventful wedding night,and it seems that the husband has the upper hand every time.An husband who has also got a straight bland fiancée who's got a "true" job (she's a teacher;says auntie:there are two jobs for a woman : one is respectable ,my niece's ,and one is scandalous ,yours!) These two ladies want the man to divorce Lorena .To make the matter worse,Lorena has also a suitor,a really jealous guy.The movie is so-so but Miss De Carlo was a beauty and had plenty of go.
