The Fighting Kentuckian

John Wayne plays a frontiersman, who partners up with Oliver Hardy! This seems strange at first, but they have a great rapport and act well together. Vera Ralston is the love interest, and while she's pretty, she's not a great actress and is merely passable in the role. There's lots of fighting and heroic action in this movie, and it's a way to pass an enjoyable hour or two. John is at his most charismatic here.

An American Western-comedy; A story set in Alabama, 1812, about a Kentucky trooper who makes a long journey homeward with his army confrère and becomes involved with a robber baron's plan to deprive hundreds of French army refugees of land promised by Congress, and he acts to prevent the villain's marriage to the daughter of a former French general. This is a routine Western with incessant chases and gunfire. The romance is stilted with no chemistry between John Wayne and Vera Ralston, who sounds more Czech than French. However, it is a boisterous distraction with sparkling photography, and the excellent comedy performances shine through its medicore storyline. John Wayne has screen presence, and his light humour complements the piece very well, never overshadowing Oliver Hardy's marvellous physical comedy, which is a treat to watch: two great light comedy performances. As an aside, though, Hardy is only slightly pugnacious here, which will feel muted in comparison to his high acclaim for his other pictures acting alongside Stan Laurel.

In 1817, following a land-grant Act of Congress, written to aide Napoleon-supporters in the War of 1812, 340 French families settled on four townships in Alabama. They arrived in Mobile, Alabama on the ship "McDonough" and made their headquarters in a small community named "White Bluff." A year later, with the community developed into a thriving village by their labors, they renamed it "Demopolis," an ancient Greek name meaning "City of the People." These Napoleonic exiles chose not to give it a French name that would recall their native land.

These cultured colonists, from the drawing rooms and military heritage of the old French aristocracy, were likely the least-prepared of any of the immigrant groups who settled the American wilderness, and soon found themselves pioneering the rugged interior of Alabama with illiterate traders, squatters and Indians for their neighbors. They called themselves "The Association of French Emigrants for the Cullivation of the Vine and Olive", but their attempt at olive and grape culture was a complete failure. The Indians taught them how to grow corn and beans, but when they discovered that through a surveying error they inadvertently had built their city outside the chartered boundaries, they drifted away, either returning to France or settling in Mobile or New Orleans. But Napoleon was no great hand when it came to reading maps and recognizing boundaries, either.

Director/writer George Waggner took the surveying mistake and converted it to a land-grab scheme, threw in a motley group of rugged Kentucky militiamen, returning from the Battle of New Orleans, used the most diverse cast in any of the American-frontier films from Republic...and then tossed in ten pounds of plot into a five-pound container. Most of which worked. Aside from the thematic song, a traditional called "Kentucky Marching Song", in which he wrote new lyrics to go with George Anthiel's arrangement. Neither of which, apparently, spent much time on the writing or the arranging.

I'd never heard of this one before and didn't know John Wayne had acted alongside Ollie Hardy until today. I like both though and I do enjoy a Western and this was a very enjoyable Western.

In The Fighting Kentuckian John Wayne steps back a couple of generations on the American Frontier from where he usually has his movie roles to play a frontier soldier. He's one of the Kentucky riflemen who saw action in the Indian wars and the Battle of New Orleans with Andrew Jackson. His company is going home to Kentucky to be de-mobilized. But in a town in Alabama called Demopolis, Wayne gets a bit sidetracked by the lovely Vera Hruba Ralston.

Ralston is the daughter of Hugo Haas who plays one of Napoleon's former generals who is now leading a party of French exile settlers who have settled on land granted to them in Demopolis. The problem is that the French settlers are being set up for a big con game by a quartet of villains, Marie Windsor, Paul Fix, John Howard, and Grant Withers. Because of Wayne's growing involvement with Ralston he and sidekick Oliver Hardy get drawn into the problems of the settlers.

That's right I did say Oliver Hardy. While partner Stan Laurel was having health problems Hardy did this film with John Wayne and another, Riding High, with Bing Crosby. It's a different Ollie we see in The Fighting Kentuckian, not the know it all forever getting hoisted on his own petard by his bumbling partner Laurel. For most of the film he's a traditional sidekick to Wayne in the Gabby Hayes tradition. However there is one scene where Ollie gets to use the Duke as a substitute Stan Laurel. Wayne and Hardy sneak into a party given by Haas as musicians, fiddlers to be precise. Hardy actually plays, but Wayne is going to fake it. That is until the piece they're playing calls for a solo. As each musician does his bit, the expressions on Wayne's face are pure Stan Laurel. Ollie who was never the creative one in their partnership had to have coached Wayne on this. He does all the traditional Stan Laurel shtick, but cry. It's very funny, totally not what you would expect from John Wayne. It's the highlight of the film for me.

On the negative side the film is a bit overplotted. The quartet of villains mentioned above are all not quite working in tandem. Each one has his own agenda and it makes the film a bit hard to follow.

Still I believe the Duke's fans will enjoy a somewhat different John Wayne and Laurel and Hardy fans would appreciate Wayne's attempts at a salute to Stan. I think Ollie worked better with the Duke than he did with Harry Langdon in Zenobia.