Angel and the Badman
Written and directed by frequent Wayne collaborator James Edward Grant, Angel and the Badman (1947) is a wonderfully low-key, character-driven Western. The Duke subdues his usual two-fisted persona for a more layered performance, and the result is one of his more unique films. Although it drags in spots, and its ending cheats the viewer, Angel is a fine bit of work.
Quirt Evans (John Wayne) is a gunfighter and cattle rustler who is wounded in a gunfight. He flees into the desert and stumbles onto the Worth family's ranch. The Worths, a family of Quakers, take him in despite the price on his head, and Quirt finds himself falling for daughter Penelope (Gail Russell). Though he's being pursued by Marshal McLintock (Harry Carey Sr.) for a stage robbery, Quirt falls back in with his old gang, rustling cattle and facing off against old rival Laredo Stevens (Bruce Cabot). Quirt finds himself torn between his violent past and his admiration for the Worths' pacifism.
Angel is a lovely film. Despite the heavy religious content, it manages to avoid being a preachy morality play. Quirt finds himself almost inadvertently accepted by the peaceful Western community, using his reputation to keep Laredo and a water-hoarding landowner (Paul Hurst) at bay, which ironically gains him respect as a respectable member of the community. Of course the film sides with the Quaker's peaceful worldview - providing a cynical atheist Doctor (Tom Powers) to make the Worths look especially good - but as Quirt observes, very few people are likely to accept pacifism - especially in the untamed frontier. The film plays with audience expectations, building up to a showdown between Quirt and his old nemesis. The finale sort of finesses the issue, providing a refreshing anti-climax and then cheating a bit by dispatching the bad guy anyway. The film would have been better-served by a tragic ending than the Stagecoach-inspired finale, however much we want our protagonists to get together.
The Duke shines in an atypical role, playing Quirt as a decent, sentimental guy who can't reconcile his violent lifestyle with his increasing sense of belonging in the Worth's community. Gail Russell is gorgeous and endearingly vulnerable as Penelope, playing marvellously as a foil to Quirt's conversion. The supporting cast, headed by Harry Carey Sr., Bruce Cabot (King Kong), Irene Rich (Fort Apache), Paul Hurst (Gone With the Wind) and Tom Powers (For the Love of Rusty), is also fine.
The Comancheros
I don't know how I missed The Comancheros (1961) during my Duke-loving youth, as I'm sure I would have loved it. It's almost a picture-perfect template for the classic Hollywood Western, with John Wayne, cowboys, Indians, gunfights, Monument Valley, card-playing, drinking, and lots of machismo. The Comancheros is no masterpiece, but it's a fun bit of Western entertainment, with a few niggling flaws that can be mostly overlooked.
Ne'er-do-well gambler Paul Regret (Stuart Whitman) kills the son of a New Orleans judge in a duel, and flees to Texas to escape justice. Upon arriving in Galveston, he's arrested by Texas Ranger Jake Cutter (John Wayne), who has the devil's own job keeping Regret in line. After Regret escapes custody, Jake finds himself with bigger fish to fry - a band of gun runners, the titular Comancheros, who are smuggling weapons to hostile Comanche Indians. While trying to infiltrate the gang, Jake meets up with Paul, and the two enemies must team up to fight crippled crime boss Graile (Nehemiah Persoff) and his gang of thugs.
There really isn't much to criticize in The Comancheros, unless you want to be nitpicky and point out that Winchester rifles didn't exist in 1843. It's a fun, compelling and well-made old-school Western which makes no pretensions to being anything more. With exciting shootouts and fights, a fun, quotable script, a cool duo of leads, a sexy, somewhat-duplicitous female lead (Ina Balin) and gorgeous Western scenery, the film admirably succeeds in what it sets out to do. If there's any criticism to be made, it's that the main plot takes awhile to get going, and the villains - aside from Tully Crow (Lee Marvin), the half-scalped, hard-drinking gun-runner who makes an unfortunately early exit - are underdeveloped. That being said, this isn't The Searchers, and such lapses can be overlooked when the end product is so damned fun.
The great Michael Curtiz (Casablanca, Mildred Pierce) is at the helm in his farewell picture, and the movie is certainly technically accomplished. With veteran Ford photography William Clothier, Curtiz makes exquisite use of Monumental Valley location, out-Fording John Ford in many sequences, especially the extreme, Lean-esque long shots in the scene where one of Jake's deputies (Patrick Wayne) watches the Marshall and Regret be intercepted by Comanches. The action scenes are excitingly staged, although the final battle is a bit of an anti-climax; it's given a great deal of build-up but seems over in the blink of an eye. The movie also boasts a snappy script by (who else?) James Edward Grant and Clair Huffaker, and a rousing, iconic score by Elmer Bernstein.
Wayne is in top form, playing his usual two-fisted protagonist with a snarky, self-deprecating sense of humor (his calling the New Orleans-based Whitman "Mon-sewer" is hysterical). Stuart Whitman acquits himself well although he's inevitably overshadowed by the Duke. Ina Balin is a gorgeous femme fatale but has little to do. Lee Marvin shines in his colorful bit; he would parlay this role into a co-starring role with Wayne in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, and from there catapult to stardom. Old Western hands Edgar Buchanan (Ride the High Country), Bruce Cabot and Jack Elam (Once Upon a Time in the West) can be spotted in small parts.
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