Bullwhip

Despite claiming self-defence, Steve finds himself in jail with nothing ahead of him but a short drop to the end of a rope. When the judge that sentenced him, offers him a way out, Steve suspects he has been set up but has no room to turn the offer down. So it happens then that Steve is married to Cheyenne – a fiery young woman, whose father's will states that she will inherit nothing unless she marries within so many days. With the papers signed, Steve is let out of jail with no knowledge of who his new wife is and quickly finds that he was not pardoned – only freed, so a posse of men are after him immediately. Steve gets offered a chance to get after his wife and claim his rights as her husband by sinister businessman Parnell and thus he sets of after her wagon train.

Despite the trimmings, western setting and plotting, the basic story here is very much a simple case of "man and woman dislike each other while the audience wonder if they will overcome differences and perhaps even fall in love". The answer to this question is unlikely to have audiences on the edge of their seats but the film does just about manage to entertain even if it never really does anything that special or interesting. The story treads the usual path but has some humour, action and intrigue to make for a distracting affair that more of less does the job for an undemanding afternoon in on a wet weekend. Of course a lot depends on the chemistry between the stars in this sort of plot and unfortunately the delivery isn't good enough on that front.

It isn't that the cast are bad, because they are actually OK but this film could have been lifted greatly by some really sparkling chemistry and interaction between the two leads. Madison is fairly solid in the lead role and does do well with a slight swagger and wry grin; meanwhile Fleming is quite interesting but is never as sexual or as fiery as she needed to have been. The scenes the two share don't work that well either – the audience had to care for both characters and see genuine affection below the surface even in the most argumentative encounters and they can't manage to do that and just come off as, well, two b-movie stars playing opposite each other rather than anything convincing. Adams plays the usual b-movie villain with some relish but didn't make much of an impression on me I'm afraid.

The end result of all these average ingredients is a b-movie that never really rises above par for the course at any point but just about has enough comedy and energy to provide distraction if you are in an undemanding b-movie mood.

So this starts out with our framed hero in a jail cell who agrees to marry a woman to get out of jail and then his buddy arrives, an assassin misses a shot at him, a sheriff(?) fires at them and his buddy kills the sheriff and then he rides after his new wife's pack train and when he catches up, he takes it over.

The assassin is following him but seems to appreciate his friendship and ends up getting all the money for (not) killing him anyway.

I don't like the Hollywood disrespect for the law, but the girl vs. Guy interplay is entertaining, and Rhonda Fleming is eye candy par excellence with every male viewer wishing he was in that covered wagon with her. (Why not just offer her a massage?)

Her father who owns the shipping company dies, but she's an Indian princess. It should have been clarified that she had been captured by the Indians and raised as one of their own.

And Iron Eyes Cody looking good! I wish he were still with us too.

Rhonda's bio says she had 5? 6? Marriages and ended up with a son and 4 great-grandchildren. She definitely should have had daughters too.

BEAUTIFUL woman!

Here's an example of Plot #37 -- the couple forced to wed under unusual circumstances who seem to detest each other at first but who slowly, inevitably fall in love. Since the plot holds no surprises, the success of any film using Plot #37 largely depends on its two leads. Do they have the right chemistry? And does the script give them good dialog to toss back and forth?

Alas, Rhonda Fleming and Guy Madison lack the necessary spark, and both of them seem a bit over-the-hill for this kind of romance. Their lines are without style and wit and the course of their relationship manages to proceed both predictably and unconvincingly at the same time.

An air of sexism and racism pervades the movie and its depiction of the Old West, but in ways that are more amusing than offensive. Seeing Rhonda Fleming in her Indian maiden outfit, complete with feather, has a campy charm.

Not surprisingly, Guy Madison gets to take his shirt off in order to display the chest which once adorned the inside door of a thousand high-school lockers. Though slightly faded at age 35 or so, this chest is still easy on the eyes and it's so unshaved as to be downright furry.

This is a well-worn story about a man who marries to escape the hangman's noose, then sets about "taming" his reluctant bride. It manages to be sexist and racist at exactly the same time. We never find out, for example, why a woman who won the respect of an Indian warrior is completely unable to fight back against her erstwhile husband. Or why the members of her team are so eager to get a "real man" in the saddle when she seems to have been taking care of things just fine on her own. This only made sense in fifties Hollywood.

There's a really stupid scene where she horsewhips him and he actually catches the whip--the second time--then yanks her off her horse. Never mind that the first time probably would have lost him an eye, which would make it pretty hard to grab that whip! Then, he prevails in a fight against her Indian bodyguard where he spends the first two thirds of it getting beaten to a pulp. That's some second wind. Later, he successfully negotiates with some bloodthirsty Indians (as they all are in these flicks) after they reject her now she's his "squaw". Never mind that he has zero diplomatic skills and she's been negotiating with them for years. And the way he keeps rejecting her attempts to seduce him just to keep her keen and keep her from getting a hold on him--yeah, right. Like the women are just throwing themselves at him all the way down the trail.

Finally, neither of the leads is convincing in their roles. Madison is just a jerk who gets unrealistically lucky. Fleming flips her hair and scowls a lot, but is totally unconvincing as a fiery tomboy. The only reason you'd root for her is because you want to see Madison get tied to a runaway horse and dragged over a cliff before the film's end. The way that Madison tames Fleming is so predictable and has so few obstacles that it will irritate the heck out of you if you see women as anything but blow-up dolls. Even if you do see them as dolls, the total lack of suspense will bore you.

Total waste of time. Even the scenery's kinda dull. Give this one a big miss.

In which I woud have prefectly imagined Barbara Stanwyck. But Rhonda Fleming is OK in this role and for which you can unfortunately foresee the ending. This is a pretty good little western, and do not confound with Chuck Marquis Warren's BLACKWHIP nor Harmon Jones' - the same director as this one - SILVER WHIP, starring Dale Robertson and made for 20th Century Fox. Nothing fantastic, exceptional. Harmon Jones is a director whose films would deserve to be discovered again by old gems diggers. For me women are not necessarily made to be monitored, dominated by males, and in his kind of schemes - strong females - in most cases they finally.... Know what I mean? I love strong male stories and I am also a feminist in the same time.