Copper Canyon

Ray Milland gives an excellent performance to lift this above most of the Westerns of the period. Milland often lifted movies with his generally laid back style and occasional moments of striking intensity. One thinks of "Dial M for Murder," "X, the Man with X-ray eyes," "Love Story," and his appearances on "Columbo." He is like a great singer who knows you only have to hit a few striking notes to make a memorable song.

His character, Johnny Carter, is a gentle, humorous, trick shooter and vaudeville performer who dislikes violence and enjoys women. The character foreshadows the wonderful gambler, Maverick, that James Gardner would make famous seven or eight years later. Milland has the roguish charm of Cary Grant and a little of the blushing modesty of George Reeve.

Hedy Lamarr doesn't come off quite as well. This movie was two years after her hit movie "Samson and Delilah," She brings only a little of Delilah's sexiness to her role. At moments she does foreshadow Joan Crawford in "Johnny Guitar," but unfortunately there's not enough for her to create a memorable character as Crawford did in that role.

Macdonald Carey shines as a sheriff who abuses his power and gives law and order a bad name. He is not as psychotic as Jack Palance in "Shane," but he does stoop to shooting men in the back and refusing to fight fair.

As others have noted, the Technicolor is good and the movie is pretty fast paced, with enough plot twists and action sequences to hold our attention. Fans of Westerns should enjoy it and fans of acting should appreciate Milland's delightful performance.

I have not seen this movie recently; but I remember it as an unusually attractive looking film. Color by Technicolor, and colorful costumes by Edith Head, for Hedy Lamarr, helped make this otherwise run of the mill story, eye candy for viewers. Hedy Lamarr looked wonderful as usual; of course this role could not possibly rival that of Delilah. Ray Milland was more fun than usual. I thought character development was superior to most westerns of the time; except perhaps for Hedy's role, which seemed a little ambiguous. Good western. Hedy Lamarr's physical presence was an added bonus.

First off, I love Ray Milland. He's so cool and collected. The man can wear golden hoop earrings and fend off Marlene Dietrich without looking the slightest bit unnerved (see "Golden Earrings"). He's calm in this also, and he doesn't even attempt to let you in on the whole "Is he the guy or isn't he?" conflict that runs through this film. (I also enjoy the COMPLETELY different "Is she or isn't she?" of "Johnny Guitar," but that's another story.) I rarely discuss the plot (I'm usually distracted) but Ray Milland is approached to help some former Rebels who are being cheated by former Yankees. Sort of a "You killed my son so I won't buy your product" thing. That gives Ray a chance to deliver a disgustingly sappy speech direct from Abraham Lincoln. Discrimination of any kind is a touchy subject, and it is difficult to get it into a film without offending someone, so A for effort on that point.

Hedy "The Most Beautiful Girl in the World" Lamarr is the good-bad girl. Or is it the bad-good girl? She's the seemingly bad girl who proves to be good in the end. There we go. She's gorgeous in color, and that's definitely the highlight of her performance. There has never been any reason to have women in westerns--I've always hated that. They just stand around looking delicate and lovely (how they managed to do that in the old West where the ratio of men to women was staggering I'll never know). They're something to fight over, but that's it. Hedy tries to worm her way into the plot, but when the action starts she's out of the running. "Johnny Guitar" isn't like that, but those aren't regular "women" in the usual sense of the word. I for one desperately wanted to see Hedy pick up her shotgun and blow her corrupt not-boyfriend right out of the saddle. But no. She had to stand on the porch and watch the action from afar. She did blow him out of the saddle a few times, but that was different, and of course sex-related.

I think I would have appreciated this film more had Ray Milland been a simpering entertainer and Barbara Stanwyck a rough-and-ready female rancher with bone to pick with everyone. Not that Hedy Lamarr's bad, but this isn't her thing. (I also love the obligatory explanation of her accent. In this, she's from New Orleans, where everyone has an accent of some kind. In "Come Live With Me," she's naturally from Austria. They can't just let us wonder why a foreign-accented beauty turns up in Nevada and starts playing poker with the sheriff.)

All in all, it's entertaining, but don't roll out the red carpet yet.

Plot-- An ex-Confederate officer turned trick-shot artist is enlisted by townsfolk looking to get their copper ore past a crooked sheriff and his men. At the same time, he has to deal with a glamorous saloon girl whose allegiance sort of wobbles.

When I think westerns, LaMarr and Milland don't come readily to mind. Here they're just okay, though I'm sure their names looked good on the marquee. Though Milland can project grit, he's too laid-back (unmotivated?) here to anchor an action movie. He's better when he's just a smooth trick-shot artist. Then too, LaMarr projects a lot more beauty than the emotion needed for her tricky role. Her part unfortunately calls for a stronger, more Stanwyck-type personality, as others point out. Nonetheless, the production does have two things going for it. First is the great red rock scenery of Sedona, AZ, familiar from a hundred other big budget oaters, but well- staged and photographed here. Second is Macdonald Carey who delivers much needed spark and energy as the conniving bad guy. Then too, no film that includes exotica like the gnomish Percy Helton (Scamper) or the amazonian Hope Emerson (Ma Tarbet) can afford to be overlooked.

Anyway, the movie's a decent time-passer, but lacks the tightness and force needed to really register.

Copper Canyon is a well turned out, but unremarkable Western -- on the whole not more than a cut above one of Randolph Scott's average numbers. Yet it is unusually pleasurable to look at because of its gorgeous old Technicolor cinematography, exceptionally good use of gorgeous Arizona scenery by top cinematographer Charles Lang, lush sets by Sam Comer and Ross Dowd, stalwartly staged action sequences by director John Farrow, and two of the most gorgeous ladies ever to grace the silver screen -- Hedy Lamarr and Mona Freeman. What more could you ask from a little 60-year old western!

Why do I say "old Technicolor"? I and other aficionados are always going on about the beautiful, luminous black & white movies of the late 'thirties, 'forties, and early 'fifties, when the crystal-clear nitrate film was in use. I don't know what kind of film they used for the three-strip Technicolor pictures then, but it seems to me that the color movies of the same period have a sharper, brighter, yet more subtle look than later ones. The color quality of Gone With the Wind (1939), The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (1939), Canyon Passage (1946), and even the little movie were are discussing would never be surpassed in future eras, except perhaps by some of the Vista-Vision movies such as The Searchers (1956). (*see "Addendum" below)

Such sumptuous color seemed designed to bring out the staggering beauty of Copper Canyon's two female stars. Neither Hedy Lamarr nor Mona Freeman ever came close to winning a best actress Academy Award, but if the Accademy gave a Gorgeous Dame award, both would have been in the running. Never mind that Hedy was in her late thirties at the time. Those of us who are veteran devotees of beautiful women know that is in fact the age at which women are at their absolute best. And Hedy was living proof in Copper Canyon. She never looked more sultry and desirable. Mona Freeman, age about 24 in 1950, was as pretty and sweet looking a young woman as could possibly be found -- an angelic face with cupid-bow lips framed by golden locks borrowed from a Wateau painting. One of my picky, old wife's movie pet peeves is women in western and other historical settings accoutered with that blaring Tangee lipstick -- you know, the kind that shouts at you. But it sure looked good on the two gorgeous babes of Copper Canyon.

Oh, yes, Ray Milland was in the movie, too, as the reluctant hero. Macdonald Carey, usually a good guy but a virile and menacing villain here, nearly steals the show from the top-billed stars. Ray's suave, cool approach is always interesting, but he didn't seem to have his usual sharp edge in this one. Perhaps he was too busy admiring the scenery. Never mind, he and the other stars get lots of support from a pack of fine character actors, the most memorable of whom is the bizarrely colorful Percy Helton as a character named "Scamper".

Copper Canyon is a solidly entertaining western and a visual treat.

*Addendum: Never wonder about what you can look up. Since posting the above remarks, I have read the Wikipedia article on Technicolor. It was so stultifyingly technical, it would take a physicist (as the inventor of Technicolor was) or a professional photographer, or someone who was both to really understand it. I managed to wade through it armed only with my long ago liberal arts education, and here are the basics as best I can dope it out. The old 3-strip Technicolor process made such beautiful color because the special camera split the incoming light into the three primary colors registered on 3 film strips. These eventually, and magically to those of us technologically challenged, transformed to a single print on which the colors were actually dyed into he surface of the film rather than just printed on it. Result: clear, true, permanent color. The reason the color films from the late 1930's through early 1950's look so much better than most later ones is that they were true Technicolor and the later ones are not. In the late 1950's the studios went over to the cheaper and more convenient but inferior quality and less permanent Eastman Color system. Even later films called Technicolor were just Eastman Color developed at the Technicolor Corporation labs. Exceptions were the movies filmed in Vista Vision and Todd-AO or some other 70 mm wide screen processes. Those were true 3-strip Techicolor. Hope this has been helpful to others who have wondered about this.