Tulsa

Susan Hayward doesn't back down when it comes to protecting what is hers. Her character is embroiled in the early wars between wildcat oil drillers and cattle ranchers in Oklahoma. A pretty fast paced movie that stays busy. The oil field fire is a tremendous sight. Chill Wills, Robert Preston and Ed Begley round out the super cast.

In the early 1920's there was the inevitable clash between the cattle ranchers and the burgeoning oil drillers in Oklahoma. This account of that clash, filmed in color, is fast moving and interesting. It revolves around Susan Hayward's character, and Hayward is marvelous as always, and how she has to learn to adapt to the inevitable changes being wrought by the explosion of oil money. The climactic oil field fire is well done indeed. Recommended.

Tulsa, Oklahoma is an oil boom town. Cherokee Lansing (Susan Hayward) is a wild daughter to her loving rancher father. His cattle are getting killed by the oil. He goes to a Tanner Petroleum Corp well about the pollution. He is killed by an explosive gusher. Cherokee vows revenge on Bruce Tanner (Lloyd Gough) who refuses to pay for the cattle, let along for her father's death. She starts her own wells with the help of geologist book expert Brad Brady (Robert Preston) and childhood native friend Jim Redbird (Pedro Armendáriz). They want to drill environmentally with fewer wells but they face opposition from Tanner. Cherokee refuse to drill less than Tanner but Jim doesn't go along. Her ambition soon takes over and she wants to build more wells on Jim's property. Jim revolts and sets the wells on fire.

It's mostly a weak movie with the exception of Susan Hayward. She really shows her star persona. The oil well work is interesting. It's a big oil romantic melodrama. The movie is passable and then the place blows up. The fire is quite impressive. The special effects are a solid mix of miniatures, rear projections, real stunts and explosions.

No need to repeat the plot. Darn few actresses can dominate a "man's picture" like Tulsa the way Susan Hayward does. What an exceptional combination of beauty and boldness she was. The production values of this non-studio project are unusually well targeted. Without them, the movie would be little more than a good programmer instead of the sleeper it is. Credit those values (special effects, location shooting, etc.) to producer Walter Wanger, who proved he had an eye for quality material, both big budget and small, e.g. Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956). Credit too, under-rated director Stuart Heisler with a sense of pacing and an ability to redeem difficult material with intelligent touches, e.g. Beachhead (1954), Storm Warning (1951), etc.

I especially like the nightmare montage of Redbird's (Armendariz) after he's set fire to the wells. Up to that point, the derricks have been portrayed as stately umbilical cords of wealth and progress, the life's blood of the city and state. So it's a surprise to see them suddenly depicted as hulking black monsters threatening everything around them. Contrast that dark depiction with the uncritically sunny, yet thematically similar, mega-hit Giant (1956). It doesn't take much extrapolation to update Redbird's vision to the oil-based crisis of today; at the same time, the values that evolve among the movie's characters show a surprising sensitivity to the need for a sustainable environment.

I also like the way Indian Charlie Lightfoot (Yowlatchie) is shown as excelling at white man ways by becoming a shrewd businessman. Too often Hollywood portrayed Indians at extremes, either as bloodthirsty savages or as noble primitives, but rarely as 3-dimensional human beings. The screenplay may pander at times, especially with Pinky (Wills), but it's also unusually well-rounded for its period. I guess my only reservation is with the splendid special effects. Those burning oil fields are just so incredibly hot, it's impossible to see Brady (Preston) enter the inferno with little more than a squirt of water. Nonetheless, in my little book, the movie is a definite sleeper. True, as the lovelorn outsider, Pedro Armendariz is no quirky James Dean. Yet, despite its relative obscurity, Tulsa is as well-acted and carries as much depth as its sprawling, better-known counterpart, Giant.

Susan Hayward is perfectly cast as Cherokee "Cherry" Lansing, a cattle rancher's daughter in 1920s Oklahoma with a need to succeed. She lucks into land leases which are ripe for wildcat oil-drilling, quickly taking on her benefactor's professor son as a partner to combat her main competitor, a wealthy oil baron who owns the land neighboring hers. Brawling, robust tale filmed in rich Technicolor, skillfully written by Curtis Kenyon and Frank Nugent and tightly directed by Stuart Heisler. Hayward is backed solidly by a fine supporting cast, including Robert Preston in a Rhett Butler mustache and Pedro Armendáriz as an Indian kindred spirit whose friendship comes to mean everything in the end. Some of the comedic overtures are corny, and the noisy climax goes on too long; otherwise, an engrossing, entertaining, well-oiled mix of history, romance, ambition, and pride. **1/2 from ****