The Lady of the Dugout

Lady of the Dugout stars two real-life outlaws, brothers Al and Frank Jennings. Al Jennings' story was well known by Americans of the time; tales of his adventures thrilled readers of "The Saturday Evening Post." Born in Virginia in 1863, Jennings moved to the Oklahoma Territory and became a prosecuting attorney. Later, he was falsely accused and convicted of a train robbery actually committed by a former client. Rather than face imprisonment, he went on the lam. He and Frank robbed trains, banks and general stores as founders of "the Jennings Gang," bandits known as Robin Hoods of their day. Al was captured and sent to the Ohio State Penitentiary. After his case was reviewed, his life sentence was reduced and he was later pardoned by President Roosevelt. Jennings turned his life around by becoming an evangelist, politician and writer, eventually forming his own motion picture production company in Arizona.

For the company's first picture, Lady of the Dugout, Jennings hired the young director W.S. (aka Woody, aka "One-Shot") Van Dyke. Brother Frank was on board to play himself in this story of one of their true adventures.

The story is simple one. Following a bank robbery, the outlaw brothers head for their hide-out in the desert. There, they find a desolate woman and her young son who have been abandoned by the woman's husband and come to her rescue. Another bank robbery and a shoot-out provide plenty of action, realistically portrayed.

This is an exceptionally well made and moving film from 1918...and it's also complete crap. Let me explain. As far as the production values go--the acting, the locale, the action--it's great. But the story, while VERY moving, is also completely fabricated and passed off as fact by a very unreliable source. Al Jennings, who starred in and produced the film, was a real life outlaw in the old west. However, after robbing trains and banks, he somehow got his sentence in prison commuted and even eventually got a full presidential pardon! Once released, Jennings became a popular speaker, evangelist and writer--with his life being serialized in "The Saturday Evening Post". The only problem with this was that Jennings was also a habitual liar who played VERY fast and loose with the facts. The story in this film of him and his brother helping a destitute woman is pure hogwash and perpetuates the myth of the 'good bandit'--like Jesse James (who was a murderer) and other modern Robin Hoods. No, Jennings was not the type to rob from the rich and give to the poor--he robbed from the rich and gave very amply to himself! Now if you can ignore that the film is pure bunk, then you'll also find that it's very entertaining and amazingly well done for its time. Well worth seeing--just don't make the mistake of thinking it's fact-based...it ain't.

By the way, the child in this film, Ben Alexander, later went on to be Joe Friday's partner on the original TV "Dragnet" series (in the 1950s). Also, Al and Frank Jennings actually played themselves in this film!

The Lady of the Dugout (1919)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Pardoned criminals Al and Frank Jennings sit down with a couple men who want to know about their past. The men are fans of their stories in The Saturday Evening Post and want to know if there are any stories that haven't been published. Al then goes about telling of them robbing a bank and then running into a poor woman and her child who were abandoned by her husband. THE LADY OF THE DUGOUT is a pretty silly little story because the Jennings' try to make themselves look like good guys, which they certainly were not. One really has to get over that and just sit back and try to enjoy the picture. I will say that technically speaking this here is one of the best Westerns I've seen from this era. Director W.S. Van Dyke does a really good job at keeping the action going at a great pace and he also manages to make the film look very professional. I think the biggest problem with the movie is that the title cards seem to preach way too much and I also think they say way too much. Quite often they'll tell us something like "the kid is sleeping" and then we'll get a shot of him sleeping. It will read "they were mad" and then we see a scene of them mad. There really wasn't any need for the cards and other times scenes just dragged on including one flashback where we see the woman's early days. Still, the film contains some great action scenes that make it worth viewing and there's no question that there's something interesting hearing this made up story from two outlaws.

From what I read about "The Lady of the Dugout", it sounds as though the movie whitewashed its protagonist. If you can take the movie as a technical achievement, then it's a fine piece of work, even though Al Jennings was not a hero in any way, shape or form. I guess that he wanted to give himself good PR.

Other than that, it's an enjoyable movie, with some impressive shots of the Mojave Desert (doubling for Texas). I guess that in terms of plot, movies were still a few decades away from depicting the Old West realistically, and it really started with the spaghetti westerns.

Anyway, worth seeing. I found it on YouTube.