NORTHWEST MOUNTED POLICE arrested audiences in 1940 thanks to the star power of Cary Cooper, the allure of Paulette Goddard and the schlock skills of Cecil B. DeMille, who amply produced & dis-ably directed 125 minutes of history-sideswiped 1940 balderdash hewed from a real-deal 1885 revolt in Saskatchewan, Canada. *

“Oh, Dusty! You’re an angel in leather!”

The screenwriters Alan Le May, Jesse Lasky Jr. and C. Gardner Sullivan contrived to spur a laconic Texas Ranger—is there any other kind?—-named ‘Dusty Rivers’ (huh?) play-acted by Coop, 1,700 miles to Saskatchewan to bring swinish outlaw ‘Jacques Corbeau’ (George Bancroft) back to San Antone to presumably stretch a Lone Star rope. Amiable—and packing two six-shooters in case charm fails—Dusty lands smack dab in the middle of the Riel Rebellion (enter ‘surreal’ pun here and get it over with) which is being goaded on by the cur Corbeau. Dusty takes a hankering after ‘April Logan’ (Madeleine Carroll) whose Mountie brother ‘Ronnie’ (Robert Preston) is in haystack heat over the mixed-race (then referred to as ‘half-breed’) daughter of Corbeau, vixen ‘Louvette’ (Paulette Goddard, 29 & fine) who wants, flaunts & taunts like someone named Louvette Corbeau naturally would. April (her syrupy sweetness kind’a boring next to Louvette’s suggestively wanton thrust appeal) is also sought after by ‘Jim Brett’ (Preston Foster), stern-but-fair Mountie Sergeant. But before everyone’s love and/or lust is settled/sated there darn well better be a decent-sized battle to make up for a tall order of long-winded, frequently ripe dialogue. Bring forth the Gatling gun (thank you, USA) and wonder if those red coats make tempting targets.

Some outdoorsy footage was accomplished in Big Bear, California but most of the show is set-bound back on the Paramount lot and sound stages. The action scenes, when they finally get going, were fairly bloody for the time, and there are some wincing moments due to some particularly cruel horsefalls. Cooper cruises thru, likely consoling himself with a hefty paycheck and knowing he had a much sturdier vehicle that year in The Westerner.  Most of the acting is on the flamboyant side (per usual DeMille “play it big” orchestration) with sexy Goddard enjoying herself playing wicked (she and Cooper would later tangle with Direction by DeMille in the more enjoyable Unconquered). There’s some goofy back & forth, especially between Goddard and Preston—RONNIE: “You’re the sweetest poison that ever got into a man’s blood. I love you. I want you!”   “Listen you little wildcat, you’re the only real thing that’s ever happened to me. And nobody, nothing could ever make me let you go.”  LOUVETTE : “I love you so terrible bad I feel good.”  The last shortly followed by his betrayed bleat “You crawling black scum! You sneaking she-wolf! 

Cogerson lists its boxoffice as #28 for the year, grossing $4,300,000. Somehow it won an Oscar for Film Editing (over The Grapes Of Wrath, The Long Voyage Home, The Letter and Rebecca (“Yeah, right. C.B.”) and was nominated for Cinematography, Music Score, Art Direction and Sound.

The 1978 book “The Fifty Worst Films Of All Time”, a sneerfest written by Harry Medved and Randy Dreyfuss, made sophomoric hay with this chestnut. While hardly a great movie, it’s also hardly deserving of the slam those smirkers hissed on it. **

In the thespic swarm: Lynne Overman (as burring Scotsman ‘McDuff’), Akim Tamiroff (cheerful rogue ‘Dan Duroc’), Walter Hampden, Regis Toomey (nice guy ‘Constable Jerry’, who you know will get killed), Francis McDonald (looking like John Wilkes Booth, as historical rebel/freedom fighter Louis Riel), Lon Chaney Jr.(as a dope/lummox/Riel recruit), Richard Denning, Robert Ryan (31, debut year), Douglas Kennedy, Rod Cameron, Anthony Caruso, Iron Eyes Cody, James Flavin, Kermit Maynard and Nestor Paiva.

* Meanwhile in Frontierland—the repercussion redolent Riel Rebellion so ill-served by DeMille & Co. involved the Métis (mixed-race indigenous people) allied with Cree and Assiniboine tribes, a total of maybe 500 fighters, against Canadian government forces, including Mounties, numbering 5,500.

** Back in my early 20s (when you have it All figured out) I got wag laughs from “The Fifty Worst Films Of All Time”, but eventually some scraps of wisdom crept into the insulation. Film historian William K. Everson lays it down: “”There are so many factual errors and sweepingly inaccurate generalizations that to list them all would take a volume of the same size….The authors of the book are both teen-agers. This is hardly their fault. And some often remarkable writing has been done by teen-agers. But NOT in any field of historical research, where experience and the perspective that can ONLY come about by years in a chosen field, are absolute essentials….If nothing else, The 50 Worst Films Of All Time unquestionably qualifies as The Worst Movie Book Of All Time – and in view of the mediocrity being spewed forth these days, that in itself is a monumental achievement.”  Touché.