Those opening scenes of a bustling Arizona frontier town are evocative as heck. Old Hollywood seldom came up with staging as realistic as this—the squalid shacks, the unwashed crowds, the pall mall front street. All provide a riveting sense of laying down roots of some kind, which, of course, is the premise of the movie. In fact, staging is a real pillar of the production (catch the crude little boardwalk over a rainy runoff that passes by quickly but shows the attention to detail).
The story amounts to a Jean Arthur showcase as she moves from hard-driving businesswoman to cattle ranch housewife in the pre-feminist style of the day. Still, she brings off the aggressive, dynamic side in convincing style. It's a demanding role and I came away with a newly found respect for her talents.
It's a pretty good story, mainly about freight haulers out-maneuvering one another to get in at the bottom of a new territory. Holden helps Arthur, while the slippery Warren William operates behind the scenes against them. He's a delicious top-hatted villain; however, the movie loses impact by finessing the showdown off-screen. It's a bold move focusing on Arthur instead of the boys shooting it out. But that way we lose the satisfaction of seeing the oily William get his just deserts.
All in all, it's an enjoyable A-western, generally underrated, but oddly lacking in memorable impact.
The story amounts to a Jean Arthur showcase as she moves from hard-driving businesswoman to cattle ranch housewife in the pre-feminist style of the day. Still, she brings off the aggressive, dynamic side in convincing style. It's a demanding role and I came away with a newly found respect for her talents.
It's a pretty good story, mainly about freight haulers out-maneuvering one another to get in at the bottom of a new territory. Holden helps Arthur, while the slippery Warren William operates behind the scenes against them. He's a delicious top-hatted villain; however, the movie loses impact by finessing the showdown off-screen. It's a bold move focusing on Arthur instead of the boys shooting it out. But that way we lose the satisfaction of seeing the oily William get his just deserts.
All in all, it's an enjoyable A-western, generally underrated, but oddly lacking in memorable impact.