Ángel de venganza

If you (like the rest of the world) think of Shelley Winters as an overweight, frumpy, whiny old lady, rent Frenchie. I'm in the minority, I realize, but this is how I think of Shelley winters. She's cute as a button, has a fun and flirtatious personality, and believe it or not, she has a figure. Frenchie is a western with a thin plot, but it doesn't matter. Shelley is trying to find the murderer of her father, and Joel McCrea is the sheriff. Joel warns her with a story of a girl he knew who rode a wild horse for too long and got into trouble. "Don't worry about me, Sherriff. Anything I can get on. . ." she says tauntingly as she fixes his bow tie, "I can get off." How did that get past the censors? Perhaps the members of the Hays board were too distracted with Shelley's adorableness and glamorous saloon costumes to notice what was coming out of her mouth. What a figure (she used to share clothes with her roommate, Marilyn Monroe)! It's no wonder all eyes in the saloon leave the can-can dancers when she walks into the room.

Seriously, folks. I know Shelley Winters isn't a glamour queen. I realize no one remembers her as a great beauty or sex symbol. But I always think of her as she was in Frenchie. She's a bundle of fun, and I would have loved to have been her friend.

For just about all of his adult life, Gary Cooper counted Ernest Hemingway and Joel McCrea among his best friends. They were, one and all, serious ranchers and serious outdoorsmen. Cooper was fiercely competitive about his status in Hollywood, so much so that even though he and Clark Gable loved the outdoors, hunting and fishing, and got along famously, there was always a bit of a distance. As a writer, Hemingway wasn't competition; in acting, McCrea was so modest, even self-effacing, that Cooper apparently didn't feel "threatened." In numerous interviews over many decades, McCrea said that Cooper was by far his biggest influence and that he learned to "act small" for the camera by watching Gary Cooper.

Whether this study led to Joel's famously deadpan acting style is an open question; it is true that his style is immensely more effective on the big screen than it is on a tv or the modern technology screens - the difference is much more pronounced than for most other actors. Joel's wife Frances Dee said that her rancher husband believed John Wayne was the greatest film cowboy but Cooper was the greatest film actor of them all. Wayne isn't exactly deadpan, and Cooper mugs a lot so it's an interesting question about McCrea. His style seems much closer to that other longtime leading lady favorite, George Brent, than to Gary Cooper.

Regardless, McCrea is tremendously effective as a leading man. His style almost from the beginning of his career is that of a straight man, allowing scenes to be dominated by his leading lady. Yet McCrea had such a gigantic screen presence, and his delivery is so perfectly timed, that he is never overpowered. He never 'disappears.' Watch carefully his performance with Bogart in 1937's 'Dead End'; William Wyler is forced to resort to all sorts of camera tricks and stage sets to keep Bogie from being blown clear off the screen and the great director never does solve the problem.

No less actresses than Bette Davis, Ginger Rogers, and Katharine Hepburn - three of the greatest actresses of the Golden Age - spent many hours at the McCrea ranch, reading scripts with him while getting ready for various roles. All three considered McCrea to be one of the best actors they ever worked with. Many of his leading ladies, including 'Frenchie's' Shelly Winters, placed him high on their list.

It is an interesting fact that while McCrea never received any awards or much criticism beyond 'yeah good job,' over his career he had just as many box office hits as... Gary Cooper.

This film? It's a true 'horse opera,' in a way that 'The Searchers' or 'Ride the High Country' or 'The Wild Bunch' is not, but that 'El Dorado' is. And it's a 10, one of the greatest movies of its genre.

This 'horse opera' was done 3 times, at least, in a sort of theme and variations. Jimmy Stewart was magnificent as he mugged and gangly-ed through the role in the earlier version,'Destry Rides Again' also a 10 and one of the greatest movies of the genre. Not even Shelly Winters can compare to Marlene Dietrich at her most incendiary but, like McCrea, she doesn't bother with that splendid earlier performance. Instead she and McCrea completely reshape the characters and make them original and complete and brilliant.

Audie Murphy & Mari Blanchard, obviously lesser talents altogether than Stewart, Dietrich, McCrea and Winters, tried it again. While their version is clearly inferior and Audie & Mari don't have the ability to reshape the characters as McCrea & Winters abundantly do, it is a testament to the greatness of the story that even those B-movie actors could make an A film out of 1954's 'Destry.'

Great little film. Shelly Winters is smooth, sexy and Mae West funny.The story line is typical of all westerns of the era. Revenge and broken hearts among all. John Russel makes it all work as the protector of Frenchie. No cursing or nudity

Frenchie is directed by Louis King and written by Oscar Brodney. It stars Joel McCrea, Shelley Winters, Paul Kelly, Elsa Lanchester, Marie Windsor and John Russell. Music is by Hans Salter and cinematography by Maury Gertsman.

Frenchie Fontaine (Winters) has sold her successful business in New Orleans and has come West to prosper further - or does she have an ulterior motive?

In spite of some on line sources proclaiming this to be a remake of "Destry", which is a considerably better film as it happens, it really isn't a copy. The similarities are for sure there, but it is its own entity and deserves to at least be judged as such.

We have a wonderful tried and trusted Western genre narrative thread where someone is out for revenge, only in this instance it's a foxy lady. Male suitors get in a tizzy about garnering her attentions, the bad guys potter about trying to avert suspicion - but do so badly, and there's some moral outrage from townsfolk who object to Frenchie's forthright money making success. While of course there's some truths to be born out - can open and worms everywhere type of thing.

It's not very strong on the page, that's for sure, but there's plenty in the production to enjoy regardless. Cast are good value for the roles as written, not that there's any great chemistry between Winters and McCrea, but as she snake hips her way around town, and he fronts up with cool as a cucumber swagger, it's easy to just buy into the frothery of it all. The dialogue is often deliciously suggestive, the costuming is high quality (Yvonne Wood), and when action decides to make an appearance it's competently staged.

Yet it's the cinematography that is the pic's best aspect. Maury Gertsman (Comanche Territory) is not a name that jumps off the page for cinematography notices, he definitely was a better purveyor in monochrome, but his Technicolor filters are excellent here. Then there's the gorgeous locales, where Buttermilk Country/Inyo National Forest please the eyes so much you wonder why these weren't used more often through the Western genre heydays?

As a serious Western genre fan I wouldn't be comfortable putting this forward as a must see for like minded souls. However, for McCrea and Winters fans - and actually John Russell ones as well - this is no waste of time. 6/10

Despite a few gritty story elements, "Frenchie" is clearly a western that never takes itself all too seriously. Because of this, although you may not love the film, it is enjoyable and fun.

Frenchie (Shelly Winters) is a professional gambler and has just moved into a sleepy western town. Soon after buying the dying local bar, she is able to make a huge success of it--turning it into a gambling parlor. This irks some of the locals who want to keep the town clean and trouble-free, though they don't realize that she has ulterior motives. It seems her father was murdered many years earlier and the trail has led to this and an adjacent town. In the meantime, inexplicably romance blossoms between her and the Sheriff--a guy who wants to shut down the gambling establishment. There's more to it than this (including a murder) but frankly none of it ever seemed very serious. It was like the actors did it all with a wink in their eyes and by the end the viewer is left somewhat satisfied but not bowled over.

Strengths of the film include some nice acting, a crazy girl-fight and an unusual plot. The biggest deficit is the homespun comments that come flying from Joel McCrea. If I never heard another "I knew a man once who...." comment from him, I'd be a happy man!