Angel in Exile

John Carroll has served his sentence for manslaughter, so sidekick Art Smith picks him up so they can collect the million dollars in gold dust they stole. However, Barton Maclane wants it all, so he follows them to Arizona, where Smith has hidden it in an abandoned mine. Land Office clerk Howland Chamberlain cuts himself in, Meanwhile, Carroll heads up to a direly poor Mexican village in the mountains for manpower. There they think he is a miracle man, blessed by their "Blue Lady".

It's a close-run affair. Even though you watch this knowing that Carroll will come out all right and get the girl, Adele Mara, it's never clear how. Co-director Allan Dwan and Phil Ford cast a lot of Mexican actors, including Thomas Gomez and Alfredo Bedoya in large and sympathetic roles, and get some fine actors to fill in the minor ones, including Grant Withers and the ever-ancient Ian Wolfe. They certainly had the know-how and the connections. Dwan had been directing since 1911 and had helmed some of Douglas Fairbanks best swashbucklers, while Ford had entered the movies as a child actor, but had gone behind the camera at the dawn of the sound era as an assistant director for a couple of his uncle, John Ford's films. He never rose out of the B category as a director, but he and Dwan produced a fine movie here.

John Carroll was a kind of poor man's Clark Gable. Tall, handsome with a cookie-duster moustache, he never quite connected to make it the top. The 'big one' seemed to elude him. This film about a man with a dark past who becomes involved in a Mexican village centers about a return to virtue. When the bad guys from his past appear to force our hero into an exploitive, criminal scam, he is rescued by his pretense of being witness to a vision during an outbreak of disease. The bad guys are done in and our ex-bad guy finds his soul. Quite typical 40s fare in terms of story and acting and a step up from the stock "B" flicks that were used for second features back then. Some stock studio character actors include: the lovely heroine, doe-eyed Adele Mara, Thomas Gomez, Paul Fix, Ian Wolfe and perennial bad guy, Barton MacLaine-- and the great but short-lived Mexican character actor, Alfonso Bedoya who uttered the immortal lines, "We don' gotta chow you no stinkin' Batches!" Check it out, if it comes on the late show as there's no video.

And I would say with Allan Dwann touch, especially if you remember SURRENDER also made by him with still Johnny Carrol as the lead. Republic Pictures trade mark because a curious mix up of western, film noir, romance and drama. it always hesitates between those tendancies; in many republic features. But it is agreeable though, not bad at all. Those films are most of the time 90 minutes length, if you notice. Good performances and excellent time waster for old movies gold gems seekers.