Rivalen

"Let Freedom Ring" is a very odd film from MGM. After all, it stars Nelson Eddy without Jeanette MacDonald and he plays a singing action hero!! And, the film has one of the schmaltziest endings I've ever see in a movie!!

The railroad is heading west and naturally folks want the railroad. But the problem is that a gangster-type named Jim Knox (Edward Arnold) is obtaining land and selling it to the railroads....and he's not about to pay decent money to the ranchers who own the land. Instead, his thugs chase people away and threaten them....and the judge and sheriff are in Knox's employ! So, Steve Logan (Nelson Eddy) cannot directly attack Knox but instead pretends to be working with him....biding his time until a final showdown.

Sadly, the final showdown was so patriotically schmaltzy that it almost had me ready to go join the communist party!! It pretty much ruined the film. Before the ending...I might have given it a 7. But the ending is just embarrassingly bad.

He may have written this script in the hopes that it would have been given a more serious treatment by MGM. Instead his rail against internal industrial fascism on the eve of America's entry into WW2 to fight external fascists was turned into a starring vehicle for Nelson Eddy of all people. Hecht must have gone on an extended bender when he heard his story was going to be punctuated by several of Eddy's baritone interludes.

Does it all gel? No. It's a bit of shizophrenic curiosity piece to say the least. But Hecht's message resonates now as it did then, and the picture does provide many pleasing moments and is actually quite entertaining to sit through.

Eddy is likable and is even believable as a two fisted hero. His scenes with Victor McLaglen, actually beating the hell out of McLaglen in the last act, are a hoot. McLaglen is always a fun ham to watch and here he's playing his usual larger than life Irishman, though more like his turn in the Quiet Man than his lovable appearances as the Sergeant in John Ford's Cavalry trilogy. McLaglen was branded (no doubt unfairly) with the reputation of being a crypto-fascist around the time this came out. This role probably had a lot to do with it.

As far as villains go, Edward Arnold played the most menacing corporate/political wolves captured on film in that era. Here he's at it again, playing Dick Cheney to good effect a couple of years before Dick Cheney was even hatched. He also appeared in a very similar role in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington the very same year as this release.

This film is uneven, at times unbelievable, and very corny. It lands short of being good but it's still fun, thought provoking (what with the current political climate), and worth seeing.

Marvelous singer Nelson Eddy surprised me with his athletic performance as a Zorro-like character, just back from college, rather than Spain, who poses as an effete ally of the bad guy.

He still got several chances to sing, and what a great voice!

But his knock-down fisticuffs battle with the chief villain's chief deputy, played so well by Victor McLaglen, shows a ruggedness perhaps even his most dedicated fan didn't know was there.

The story is a Ben Hecht paean to the value of newspapers -- unfortunately not true any more -- and a Ben Hecht denunciation of business and business men, always such a funny script idea from a rich writer.

An excellent cast, from the stars to the withs to the atmosphere players, makes this enjoyable.

"Let Freedom Ring is an undeservedly little-known "patriotic western" with comedy and, of course, music, written by veteran screenwriter Ben Hecht and featuring practically every character actor in Hollywood at the time (Victor McLaglen in a hilarious performance, Charles Butterworth ditto, the wonderful Edward Arnold, Lionel Barrymore, Raymond Walburn, Guy Kibbee, Gabby Hayes, H. B. Warner, Louis Jean Heydt) and the lovely and gentle Virginia Bruce as leading lady. Nelson Eddy looks terrific and natural--no eye makeup, no lipstick and no Jeanette MacDonald!--and, needless to say, sings divinely. His performance is relaxed, funny and charming, he was clearly an expert horseman, and the fistfight near the end of the movie between him and Victor McLaglen is worth the price of admission. It was performed by themselves; no stunt doubles. Highly recommended to anyone who hasn't seen it.

It's Nelson Eddy again, but this time without Jeanette - in an unusual Western musical! "Let Freedom Ring" (1939) is finally available on DVD. It is a patriotic action picture based on the 19th century struggle of farmers against the railroads. History with distant echoes where I grew up in the Midwest, from stories I heard and reflected by novelists such as Frank Norris with "The Octopus" and "the Pit". First was land grabbing by nefarious means as dramatized in the film. Later, of course, came the gaming of freight rates to rob the farmers even further, into the 20th century. See Nelson Eddy lead the charge against Edward Arnold, notorious villain from Wall Street, and his hired thug Victor McLaglen, who exploit the immigrant railroad workers and homestead farmers alike! "Wall Street" is mentioned pejoratively three times; this would never happen in today's ideologically sanitized Hollywood. Otherwise, a wholesome Ben Hecht script with Arson! Fistfights! Gunfire! Noble Nelson in fine voice with codger Lionel Barrymore, comic Charles Butterworth, and comely Virginia Bruce. Plus many others in a star spangled film.