I have seen a number of George O'Brien movies and one thing I have always noticed: He never stands out. Look at Last of the Duanes it is clearly Myrna Loy's film ( ok, ok I admit to being a major Myrna fan, but that is just one example). Here he plays Larry Knight a New Yorker who is bankrupt and ends up out west and falls for Kitty Baldwin ( Dorothy Wilson) the daughter of a landowner who is being harmed over water rights. Dorothy is beautiful with a great figure but is dressed in man's clothes. The highlight of the film is a horse scene with O'Brien ( or stunt double) roping a horse and tying its legs like a steer. There is another scene of O'Brien riding a horse and getting thrown off and a poster comparing that and a fight with O'Brien and Paul Kelly to Gregory Peck on the horse and Peck fighting with Paul Ford to Peck fighting Charlton Heston in The Big Country. Maybe Director William Wyler saw this film and those scenes ( and the water rights issue) inspired him, but they were nothing like the Peck scenes ( Peck was astronomically better). Anyway this is a B Western not a classic like The Big Country. I give it 5 of 10 stars ( mostly for the horse scene and Dorothy Wilson)
Review of When a Man's a Man
