Tête d'or et tête de bois

Gosh. I don't have the energy to chart the history of the western. But this fits into an interesting pocket. Many westerns — including ones celebrated at the time — seem mighty dreary to me. But this one moves along.

It is basically a chase, a sort of detective story. It features a cowboy in noir mode with the redheaded saloon gal in her noir role, superimposed on her western role.

Nearly everyone we see is pretending to be something they are not and several key reversals happen. Of course our noir everyman, played by Ford, is pure and open. Dogs and little girls sense this.

It is in black and white, shot in Utah following the pattern. It has Indians, renegade soldiers, a stupid sheriff, a big finale complete with jumping into a runaway wagon. Until then, we have noir, but it switches to a western ending. Honest cowpoke, gets feisty redhead.

Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.

I'm not a fan of Glenn Ford or Edmond O'Brien so this film passed the time without any wow factor, although I give credit to O'Brien as he upped his game in this film so that I actually liked him. For the first time ever! Ford is still a gormless monkey, though.

This film is about confederate spy Rhonda Fleming (Candace) trying to get a message through to her army whilst in the middle of Unionist territory. There are loads of double twists in this film and "who-is-who-and-what-are-they-doing" threads towards the end when it can get a bit confusing. Everyone looks the same and could be in the same army. They could have made things a bit easier.

We needed a female bar-room song - I know the film is not a western, but a bar-room song was missing. Also, we could have had better use made of the Navajo Indians. Where were the Indians? Alan Reed pops up towards the end as a conniving Colonel but plays his role as a comic cartoon character. He later found his calling as the voice of Fred Flintstone - a comic cartoon character! Perfect for him but he didn't belong in this film.

The answer to the question is 11.

Glenn Ford is a living legend who seemed born to the saddle. On display in this film (once again) is his strong, yet amiable cowboy screen persona. Rhonda Fleming is well cast here and the storyline is interesting but not overly complicated. Pacing and script development are well done.

While this is not Ford's best western, it does show why he was so successful in the saddle. He presents a strong presence in the film, without taking himself too seriously.

It was great to see Alan Reed as the Condererate Colonel. ( Reed was the longtime voice of Fred Flintstone !!)

Call me crazy, but shouldn't The Redhead and the Cowboy have been made in Technicolor? How are we supposed to know Rhonda Fleming has red hair? Alright, we've seen her in other movies, but I still maintain that this movie wasn't as effective in black and white. And speaking of other movies, I fully admit I suffer from "Humphrey-Bogart-It is" with her: the first movie I saw her in left an unchangeable impression. No matter how many movies where she plays a bad girl, I'll always think of her as Princess Sandy. Mark Twain made me loyal to her sweetness. She's so beautiful; it's a shame Hollywood made her a villain a lot of the time. In this movie, she plays a Confederate spy who plays men as easily as she looks at them and takes everything she can get. But, what about Princess Sandy! Can't she be a good girl deep down?

Glenn Ford plays her latest mark. He's a stranger in a small western town, and when he follows a flirtatious Rhonda into the back room of a saloon (hoping to get lucky, let's face it), he winds up alone with a corpse. Edmond O'Brien and other witnesses think Glenn is a murderer, and they chase him out of town - but Glenn is chasing Rhonda to clear his name. She's the only one who knows he's innocent. Unless Edmond believes him, or else why would he help him with his narrow escape? There are some twists and turns to this movie, but it's not the best Confederate western I've seen. I like The Texans far better. Or if you want Glenn Ford's comic timing, check him out in Advance to the Rear.

In The Redhead And The Cowboy Glenn Ford plays his usual amiable cowpoke who gets himself innocently caught up in a deadly Civil War espionage game. It all starts when he gets himself involved doing a little celebrating with saloon girl Rhonda Fleming who was certainly Paramount's favorite redhead back in the day.

In this film however Fleming is a Confederate spy and while she's entertaining Ford as part of her cover one of her fellow spies shows up with a knife in his back and a few last words about a message to be delivered. Sheriff Morris Ankrum is about to arrest Ford for a murder because Fleming fled the scene delivering whatever message she has to.

Along the way these two pick up Edmond O'Brien who is clearly not the cattle buyer he says he is. But just who is he working for?

This Paramout film moves nicely along and it has it's noir type aspects as poor Ford is trying to figure who is playing on what team. All three of the stars are out played in this film however by Alan Reed who is Quantrill type guerrilla leader Lamartine. Reed until he became the voice of Fred Flintstone probably has his best visible role with Lamartine. He gets a chance to play it broadly and expansively and even chew a bit of scenery and the diet is good.

Fans of the stars will like The Redhead And The Cowboy and everyone will just love Alan Reed in his role.