The Nevadan

In an era of overbearing deep, so deep, psychological westerns, it's nice to know Hollywood still knew how to put together these shoot 'em ups. This A-grade production with the very good direction by Gordon Douglas behind it is not much, if not entertaining. Randolph Scott who was to begin an era of a-b grade westerns and make some so-called classic westerns with Budd Boetticher shows his interpretation of the gun-man with few words that he would use effectively later on to good effect. The plot has something to do with Scott being an Undercover marshall, gold and yes, bad guys who need to be gunned down. Anyway, it's all a mcguffin for a final sequence in a mine shaft that is breath-taking. Nice entertainment, at the least.

The Nevadan finds Randolph Scott in a three cornered battle for some stolen gold that escaped outlaw Forrest Tucker has hidden away. After Tucker has made good an escape from authorities, Scott turns up on his trail and proves quite useful. Still Tucker can't figure out why he's turning up all the time and being so helpful.

The other part of this mystery is George MacReady who was doing several Randolph Scott westerns at this time. He's a seemingly respectable rancher, but he's got some thugs on the payroll who include Jock Mahoney and bickering brothers Frank Faylen and Jeff Corey ready to do his bidding and he's cutting himself in on Tucker's hidden treasure.

Complicating all this is Dorothy Malone, MacReady's daughter, a lovely thing who is totally clueless about her old man. She takes a fancy to Scott and he to her which causes problems for everyone involved.

The Nevadan is a good Randolph Scott western that tries for a bit of mystery. The action is good, but the mystery isn't. The people in the film are cast in roles traditional to them so any experienced film watcher can almost predict what will happen.

Best part of The Nevadan is the inevitable three cornered shootout at the location of the loot. I think you can figure out who comes out on top.

This movie just begins the transition from the old, cartoonish Scott Westerns and the more adult Boetticher films...they were getting there, but just not there yet. This movie is still very heavy on the one-dimensional characters and you won't find any Method acting, but Randolph Scott had aged just perfectly by this point...the lines in his face providing a mature ruggedness...no more matinée idol good looks...just a weather-beaten cowboy. His acting isn't very good in this one, but he always looked the part of the hero (except for the hat he wears in the beginning of the film...impossible to take him seriously in that ridiculous thing).

The IMDb critics, as well as many legitimate critics, pile on top of poor George Macready, complaining that he didn't belong in Westerns. The problem with these poor misguided folks is that they expect a Western to only contain southern accents. Our land was settled by those from all over the UK, Europe, and beyond, so the fact that George Macready has the speech pattern and accent that he does would actually be MORE accurate for the time period, not less. And how can anyone complain about him as the bad guy when his normal speaking voice was so phenomenal and unique...the man literally sounds like a snake! He's a fine actor and I always enjoy watching him.

Although Forrest Tucker does a fairly good job throughout, the bulk of the supporting cast all give performances that never ring true. The best actor in the whole movie? Dorothy Malone. I was really surprised at how good she was. I had only ever seen her as a blonde, so I almost didn't recognize her as a brunette...and so young and innocent! She looked absolutely beautiful, and gave a uniformly good and honest performance.

I'm a guy who likes my action films undiluted with dopey love stories, but I must say that the scenes between Scott and Malone were excellent...they had some real chemistry...and I think because Ms. Malone was such a good actress, she raised Scott's performance up to where it should have been throughout. ***QUASI-SPOILERS COMING UP*** The problem is, they never hug, never kiss, never fall in love in a way that means anything...always from a distance. Their chemistry was really wasted. He doesn't even say goodbye to her at the end of the movie and she has a dopey line to let the audience know he'll be back!! That was a big let-down.

Unless you're a die-hard Randolph Scott fan, or want to get an eyeful of an adorable Dorothy Malone, I would suggest letting this film go by. The best of the Scott films are: The Tall T, Ride Lonesome, Seven Men From Now, and Comanche Station...those are guaranteed to entertain.

For Randolph Scott, the 1950s started with the Columbia film The Nevadan, co-starring Forrest Tucker, George Macready and Dorothy Malone. Scott and Tucker have a marvelous give-and-take relationship that anticipates the rivalries to come in the Boetticher films. Frank Faylen and Jeff Corey give colorful performances as henchmen who are brothers, and have a rivalry of their own. Jock Mahoney has a small role, and doubles for Scott in the fight scene at the end. Only the cheap Cinecolor process betrays the slight budget, excellent direction by the unsung Gordon Douglas.

Unexceptional Westerns like this one almost always followed certain well-worn conventions. A few clips on the jaw and a man was unconscious. Men wore nondescript generic Western clothing, usually including a vest. The capo may have a string tie, possibly a suit, but most of the men wore neckerchiefs which were never used, as well as guns, which were. The girl friend was pure, although maybe mixed up. There was little in the way of character development and motivations were usually simple, as Galt's is here -- "gold fever", someone calls it. They were usually shot at a studio ranch or at Lone Pine or, as in this case, in both.

Later in the 1950s ambitious directors like Anthony Mann introduced some life into the increasingly tired comic-book stories by giving us heroes who were neurotic and subsidiary characters with complicated motives. Other directors simply gave up trying and turned the cartoon into a parody, like one of those Steig cartoons in which a hand is seen drawing itself. Budd Boetticher was a director who gave up and reveled in the primitivism of the form.

That's when Randolph Scott made the Westerns he's best known for, like "Ride Lonesome." Great title there. Scott's character was reduced to a prig, as morally upright as a gastropod on its poduncle, always putting temptation behind him, never telling a lie, rejecting offers of warmth and comfort from women -- a total bore, in other words.

"The Nevadan" had the same producers as the later Boetticher films but Scott's character hadn't quite hardened into the inflexible clunk yet. He smiles here. He fibs too. He only shoots one guy, and not by outdrawing him either. It's an improvement over his later persona. But the villains aren't. Boetticher's villains were great -- Lee Marvin, Richard Boone, Pernell Roberts, James Coburn. The heavies here are not nearly as much fun. How can anyone take George MacReady seriously as a Western head heavy? He belongs in a corporation as part of a conspiracy. Faylen still sounds like the taxi driver in "Dark Passage." Ray Corey is supposed to have been a well-regarded drama teacher later on, and he gave a flawless performance in "In Cold Blood," but he brings nothing to the party here as a dull-witted joke. But the woman, Dorothy Malone, has never looked better, fresh faced, young, and innocent, as MacReady's daughter. Hollywood had a habit of glamorizing her to the point of unrecognizability. They gave her glossy hairdos, slick lips, two tons of pancake or waffle makeup, and false eyelashes the size of those canvas tarps you put up as extensions of your mobile home. She's a surprise. Nobody else in this movie is.

But it's also worth mentioning Jock Mahoney as "Sandy," one of the bad guys. He was as homely as they come, but the man's physical presence was magnetic. I'm sure he didn't deliberately try for the effect but every swift movement was as graceful as a dancer's, the opposite of John Wayne who seemed to move by putting one or two limbs in motion and letting his torso follow them sometime later on. One example: watch the scene in which Malone gives Mahoney's horse a kick in the hindquarters and Mahoney finds himself splashing down into a creek, then spins the horse around and climbs the bank as if man and animal were one being, just as the Aztecs thought.