Im Banne des Teufels

I live in Bowie County, one of 37 counties in Texas that were made while Texas was a Republic, and this County was named for James Bowie, a hero of the Alamo and a Hero of the the Republic. The rest of the story is not so heroic. James Bowie was a forger, thief, horrible human being and land thief. In this area of Texas, he is loved for being at the end of the Alamo and being an irascible scoundrel who forged land grants, forged Spanish grants and just did some terrible, fitful things. He killed a lot of people in duels but having his name being kindly lent? Nope. Now in Texas, where I live, the Bowie knife is a real and really big thing. I own one and strap it to my leg when I go out to the wilderness. And it is a big wilderness. The area where Jim Bowie plied his trade (thievery) is full of big pines and lots, and I mean lots of water. We go out to the big lakes, but not one has been made by man. Only Caddo Lake, South East of where I live, is man made. That's where Jim Bowie made his claim. I don't want to go any further into this but Jim, or James Bowie as he has been called in this area, is claimed as a hero. But this movie is terrible at accuracy, wonderful for remembrance.

Excellent entertainment for the movie-goer regarding Jim Bowie, his knife and a snapshot of his life real or imagined. It doesn't matter how accurate this is as it is not a biography or documentary but instead entertainment. Furthermore I like Alan Ladd which makes for a treat. There are some familiar faces for the cast for their time making it even more enjoyable. One thing I always look for in classic movie showings is whether the movie is watchable a second time. It all depends on memorable scenes and this movie has quite a few that make you want to "comeback" for more. Too bad it is not longer as they would have just loaded it up with more good viewing dynamics. I watch this every 2-3 years for decades and it is still holding my attention just like the first time out. Excellent movie to eat with while watching with a tasty drink. Snack ups it considerably too. Hey....

This is an adventure story using fiction to tell about the early years of James Bowie,prior to his martyrdom at the Alamo a few years after this film ends. This is a typical romantic adventure story with Alan Ladd giving an erstwhile honest portrayal in the role that Richard Widmark did years later in THE ALAMO. Mr Ladd was short in stature,but you would never really know that,. as all of the actors were either his height or 1 or 2 inches either way. Virginia Mayo is as usual very beautiful & well dressed,She was never considered a great actress but she could portray a very selfish woman with perfect ease. The rest of the cast is just what you would expect in this type of vehicle. Good production values with a very good knife fight in a dark room with only lightning bolts to highlight the action. A bit long at 112 minutes, but entertaining. a low *** rating or a 7 on the IMDB scale

as always

Jay Harris.

After a decade at Paramount Sue Carol negotiated a new studio contract for Alan Ladd at Warner Brothers. Sad to because her husband's greatest film was ready for release at Paramount and they had no great urgency to feature him in the publicity. But that's another story.

Alan Ladd became another one of a good list of players to take on the role of Jim Bowie. He plays him as heroic as Richard Widmark, MacDonald Carey, Sterling Hayden or Jim Arness did. Problem was of all the legends of the American frontier, Jim Bowie was probably the one who got the biggest whitewash in history.

The man was a thoroughgoing scoundrel. As a merchant he was as unscrupulous as a latter day robber baron. He was involved in several land swindle scams. He also bought and sold slaves as well. And he wasn't even honest in that. He and Jean Lafitte had a fine racket for a while with Lafitte capturing runaways in Texas and bringing them back to the U.S. for Bowie to sell, not necessarily back to their original masters.

He did have a knife built to his specifications as per the film and with his activities he did tend to get into a lot of violent disagreements. That's the Bowie knife, the Arkansas toothpick, the Iron Mistress of the title.

But Ladd plays Bowie as heroically as the legends have him and as the novel by Paul Wellman has him. He's caught between two women, the selfish French creole aristocrat Virginia Mayo and the daughter of the Governor of the province of Coahuila in Mexico which included Texas, Phyllis Kirk.

Bowie was a violent man in a violent era. Ladd plays him like he was Shane and he was being faithful to the novel if not the real Bowie. But then we've never seen the real one on screen any time.

Still for those who liked Ladd's portrayal of Shane, The Iron Mistress is a good film for you.

Jim Bowie sets off to sell lumber in New Orleans, but once there he is captivated by the beautiful Judalon de Bornay and finds that life here is vastly different to that of home. Getting himself into many scrapes on account of his feelings for Judalon, Bowie invents a new kind of Knife, the Iron Mistress, and from here a legend is born.

Nobody should go into this picture expecting a Jim Bowie biography, in fact Western fans who haven't seen it should be advised that it barely registers as a Western piece. What it is, is a fine picture that certainly appears to be undervalued {if a little under seen} on the IMDb site. It's full of dandy men fighting and duelling with honour and guts, beautiful women that are surely worth fighting for, and of course it introduces us to the legendary Bowie Knife.

It's based on a Paul Wellman novel, and by all accounts the film is pretty loyal to Wellman's ideals, it doesn't however take us all the way to the Alamo. Alan Ladd takes the lead role of Bowie, shiny blonde hair and brooding for all he is worth, fans of his performance in Shane should definitely check this one out, it's a great performance from Ladd, the kind that makes the gals go gooey and the boys to thump their chests. Virginia Mayo is Judalon and positively simmers with sexual beauty, the character is akin to a viper, and the pot boiling sexual tension is palpable in the extreme, she is in short, a woman men will die for.

Some scenes are just terrific, a duel in a darkened room that is only lit by the odd flash of lightning thru a window, a knife fight as two men with one arm tied to each other face off in a circle of honour, and of course Jim Bowie in every encounter, his violent gutsy bravado fearsome as his reputation escalates. At the time of writing only 141 people have voted on this picture, only 10 people have bothered to write a user comment for it, that's a shame because although it may not be a Western as such, it's a damn fine romantic, dandy, drama with a Western legend at its core. 8/10