ALL SCI-FI

[Bud Brewster]

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This is a rip-roarin', rootin' tootin' Western which pits good guy Errol Flynn against bad guy Bruce Cabot. It features the best saloon brawl in movie history, when the veterans of the Union Army go fist-to-fist with the loyal Confederate soldiers who are angry about loosing the Civil War and having to pick their own cotton!

And the climax of this great film is a shootout on board a moving train . . . which is on fire!

IMDB has several interesting trivia items for this production.
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~ Warner Bros. chartered a special 16-car train that transported at least 36 reporters to Dodge City, KS, for the film's premiere. Along the way an unscheduled stop was made in Pasadena so that Olivia de Havilland could leave the train and report for work on Gone with the Wind (1939).

The studio also sent a Technicolor crew to film the premiere, which was attended by Franklin D. Roosevelt Jr. and over 70,000 visitors that had come to the city to celebrate the premiere.

Note from me: Hot damn, even the Back Story of this movie is fascinating!

~ This was Errol Flynn's first western. He always felt miscast in the genre because of his English accent. Although Flynn was born in Tasmania, he used an English accent in films.

Note from me: A few lines of dialog from Flynn's trusty sidekick, Rusty' Hart (Alan Hale), mentions that Flynn's character is a globe hopin' adventurer who;s now determined to tame the American West!

~ The barroom brawl was supposedly the largest ever filmed. The saloon fight was filmed on stage 16 of Warner Bros. studios, took a week to film, and was budgeted at 75,000 dollars. Stuntmen Duke Green, Harvey Parry, and Sol Gorss were paid $485 each for crashing through a staircase.

Note from me: The only one that rivals it is the scene in The Great Race.

~ Country rock band Pure Prairie League, which had a mid-'70s hit called "Amie" and later employed future country star Vince Gill as lead singer for hits like "Let Me Love You Tonight" and "I'm Almost Ready," took their name from a temperance union portrayed in this film.

Note from me: The funniest scene in the movie occurs when hard drinkin' Rusty' Hart (Alan Hale) goes into a temperance meeting with a bunch of elderly ladies and gives a speech about the evils of alcohol while desperately trying to ignore all the fun the guys are having in the big saloon brawl . . . right next door!

___________Dodge City (1939) - Barroom Brawl


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~ The man Errol Flynn throws through the window of the barbershop was none other than his pal and long-time drinking companion, stuntman Buster Wiles.

Note from me: That's the beauty of having a "pal and long-time drinking companion" whose also a stuntman. You can throw him out a window and he'll be just fine!

~ Olivia de Havilland regarded the project as a career letdown. She was tired of the string of ingenue parts Warners steadily provided, and her preference for the saloon singer role that went to Ann Sheridan went unheeded. According to Tony Thomas in The Films of Olivia de Havilland, "She was bored with her work and while making 'Dodge City' she claims that she even had trouble remembering her lines."

Note from me: Strangely enough, one of Olivia de Havilland's most enjoyable movies is Hard to Get, a wonderful 1938 comedy with Dick Powell. It was made just one year before Dodge City.

I had no idea Olivia could do comedy so well! She's both adorable, infuriating, and spoiled rotten!

________________ HARD TO GET (1938) trailer


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The full movie can be watched on Archive.org. But when I downloaded it, the video wouldn't play, so I watched it directly from the website.

However, Amazon has the DVD for only $13.80, so I ordered it, and it will be here day after tomorrow. This is one of best comedies I've ever scene!

_______ HARD TO GET - full moviw on Archive.org


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~ The music played in the saloon by the piano player was later recycled into a Warner Bros. Looney Tunes Daffy Duck cartoon entitled Drip-Along Daffy (1951), a western spoof.

Note from me: Okay, you just knew I was going to add this,right?


___ Daffy Duck vs Nasty Canasta - Drip Along Daffy


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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)