weezeralfalfa An unusual western screenplay. Veronica Lake, as Connie, is the head-strong daughter of rancher Ben Dickason(Charles Ruggles), who refuses to do her father's bidding, in marrying their prosperous neighboring rancher, Frank Ivey((Preston Foster), as Ivey would like. The main reason seems to be that she's afraid he would be too dominating over her. Despite her lack of a butch physique, she wants to take an active role in the management of the ranch; not just be a traditional trophy wife. Toward this goal, she takes up with sheep man Walt Shipley(Ian MacDonald)who apparently recently acquired some land in the region, and plans to raise sheep in what is considered cattle county. Hence, he is very unpopular with the local ranchers. Presumably, she chose him because she thought she could manipulate him toward her goals. The cattlemen run him out of town. But, before he leaves, he signs his property claim over to Connie.Did Connie achieve her main goals by the end of the film? She obtained a decent -sized spread thanks to the generosity of her suitor, and to that of her ramrod, Dave(Joel McCrea), who seized an outlying cabin belonging to Ives, because Ives failed to file for that land. She chose to raise cattle rather than sheep, so as not to antagonized the cattlemen.(How did she build up a herd so quickly?). But she committed a bad self-destructive act in ordering the stampeding of her cattle. As I understand it, they were stampeded over a cliff. Thus, she lost virtually all her cattle. The point was to blame the stampede on Ivey, so as to send him to jail. But, this depended on no one recognizing her own wranglers as the perpetrators, which turned out not to be the case. Connie conceived this treachery in retaliation for Ivey burning her wooden ranch house(Her new headquarters was made of stone). Thus, her short-term solvency looks bleak at film's end. Also, her current choice of husband appeared doomed, as Dave(McCrea) was put off by her highhandedness, firming up his recent relationship with the conventional town woman, Rose. In this vendetta-riddled story, Ivey was a bad guy in that he ordered the burning of Connie's ranch house, to spite her rejection of him, thus beginning the vendetta. The sheriff came calling to Ives's place to arrest him for stampeding the cattle. He threatened the sheriff, who drew his gun, but Ivey shot him first, blaming the deed on one of his ranch hands. Also, later, he shot dead McCrea's friend, Bill, who supervised the stampede. In turn, McCrea shot Ives in a street standoff, because he had killed Bill, and the sheriff, and because McCrea had shot the man falsely accused of shooting the sheriff.Looked at from a feminist perspective, we can compare Veronica's role with that of Betty Hutton and Doris Day, in the early '50s musical comedies "Annie Get Your Gun" and "Calamity Jane", respectively, as well as Doris in "The Ballad of Josie", from the late '60s. In all of these other films, the female lead is doing something that was almost unheard of for women to do. But, in each case, at the end, she realized that she wanted a male partner who felt superior to her in her special skill, even if he wasn't. Each of these ladies succeeded in finding such a mate. In the present film, Veronica wanted to show that she could wrangle a ranch out of someone other than Ives, and make it work, although she relied on males to do the dirty work. Unlike these other characters, she doesn't come across as a natural 'butch', but primarily as a manipulator of men to accomplish her goals. Hence, she is a different type of feminist example compared to the other ladies.Of course, McCrea and Veronica had worked together previously in the acclaimed "Sullivan's Travels".See it in B&W at YouTube.

Dalbert Pringle Being something of a cowboy-junkie and a die-hard fan of Westerns from the 1940s and 50s, I can usually tolerate and excuse a lot of repetitiveness, inconsistencies and flaws in the story lines of these movies, providing, of course, that the direction is strong and that the principle characters appeal to my sense of masculinity and what I believe to be the true "Code of the West".But, with that said, I found Ramrod (which was an unfitting/dumb title) played too much like a "Harlequin Romance" Chick Flick and, due to that, it nearly put me off to sleep with its dull-edged drama and drag-along action.Not only was there some very serious miscasting in this picture (especially that of Veronica Lake, who was more suited for glamor roles in fluffy comedies), but, it also appeared to me that most of the actors were sleepwalking their way through their parts, clearly showing no sign of life or conviction in what they were doing.Mind you, Ramrod certainly did contain some very impressive camera-work in a number of scenes, especially when the action (or lack of it) was taking place out in the beautiful, wide-open country of Utah.Ramrod's far too predictable story was basically the umpteenth re-telling of the same, old tale regarding an intense conflict that's escalating out of control between the powerful cattlemen and the struggling sheep ranchers. In order to generate some much-needed excitement into Ramrod's snail-paced story, a token barn-burning was even thrown into the mundane mix, for good measure.All-in-all - You can be sure that if actress Veronica Lake hadn't been married to Ramrod's director Andre De Toth at the time, then, she, most likely, would've never, ever been considered for the part of Connie Dickason in a million years.Also - When it came to the likes of Veronica Lake and her co-star Joel McCrae, not only was the chemistry going absolutely nowhere between these 2, but, her tiny, petite stature of only 4' 11" was greatly contrasted by his hefty, towering height of 6' 3".When these two incompatible actors were photographed standing together, Lake looked like a literal midget next to McCrae - And, this, in turn, rendered Lake's already unsubstantial character as being even more insignificant than it already was to begin with.

MartinHafer I mentioned the casting director in the summary because the odd casting decisions severely impacted this movie. While it starred Joel McCrea (who made quite a few nice westerns), the rest of the cast was just bizarre--so bizarre you almost think that the studio deliberately picked the worst possible actors for the film! First, the petulant and very strong-willed woman of the west is played by Miss Peek-a-boo herself, Veronica Lake. Not only is she too small for such a role, but she still sports a variation on her fashion-setting 1940s hair--which looked totally out of place in the old West Second, her father was played by, of all people, Charlie Ruggles! The very British Donald Crisp is on hand to try to keep order as the town sheriff. And, finally, Don Defore (Mr. B from "Hazel") was cast as a bad-man--a guy who liked to shoot first and ask questions....well, never! This just seemed weird from a guy with lovely manners and such a nice-guy persona! What were they thinking?!?! As for the plot, it is quite different--and considering they made a billion or more westerns, this is a very good thing! The film begins with Ruggles magnanimously having his daughter's fiancé beaten up and chased out of town. It seems that Ruggles already has a man picked out for her. Unexpectedly, this unleashes the she-devil in Veronica--who decides to start her own competing ranch AND use evil as her guide. Too bad that the virtuous Joel McCrea is working for her and is pulled right into the middle of this mess. Soon, bodies start piling up and it's particularly surreal to see Defore is responsible for many of them!! Weird...very, very weird! I wasn't sure fond of this film, however, because of its odd-ball plot--the odd-ball casting that made the characters tough to believe. Probably the worst wasn't Defore (he was a close runner-up) but Lake, as whenever she got mean and angry, she made you want to say "....awww...ain't she cute...I love it when she makes that pouty expression!". It just didn't work for me despite McCrea's excellent (as usual) acting. An odd little curio.

mi6nick Contrary to previous reviews of Ramrod, de Toth's film is much more interesting than a "simple cattle vs. sheep" plot-driven western. Just look at Lake's Connie Dickinson. This is a typical femme fatale archetype taken straight from film noir (realistically, the character derives from hard-boiled pulp literature which Luke Short fused with his western story). Sexually alluring Connie uses her potent sway over men to achieve her greedy ambitions of wealth and power, and is unafraid to send men to their deaths for her cause. Connie's strength of character is atypical of the western genre at this stage, and her strength seems to come from the relative weakness of the film's hero, played by Joel McCrea; who seems to lack the strong sense of moral certainty that the typical westerner was founded upon. Along with Raoul Walsh's Pursued (1947), and Robert Wise's Blood on the Moon (1948), Ramrod stands as one of the few hybrids between film noir and the western. Regardless of your standpoint on the status of film noir, all of these films contain typical elements from the pessimistic noirs of the 40's and 50's, particularly formal and stylistic devices, as well as recurring personnel, especially directors, stars (ie. Robert Mitchum), and cinematographers. Crucially though, the western genre before this stage was a particularly optimistic one; look at Stagecoach (John Ford, 1939), Dodge City (Michael Curtiz, 1939), or even My Darling Clementine (Ford again, 1946); the three films I mentioned beforehand, including Ramrod, all offer instances of pessimistic worldviews, and morally ambiguous characters and situations, even though they all end with the hero getting the girl and riding into a westward sunset.