Il cavaliere audace

Dakota is one of Republic Pictures' sturdy 1940's Westerns that still hold up well today. Republic was not a "poverty row" studio, as often erroneously stated, but it did know how to operate on the cheap while turning out a slick looking product. Most of the studio's output were programmers, but a few bigger budget "quality" pictures were produced every year. Dakota was one of these for year 1945. It has the scope and scale befitting the super star John Wayne wasn't yet but someday would be.

The action starts with a madcap chase in Chicago, chugs across the prairie on a train, then churns upriver to Fargo Dakota on a rickety paddle wheel steamboat captained by Walter Brennan at his most eccentrically colorful. There is a large cast of extras along with a fine cast of principal and supporting players, including along with Wayne and Brennan, Ward Bond, Mike Mazurki, Ona Munson, Hugo Haas, Grant Withers, Paul Fix, and last, but not least the Republic studio boss's main squeeze, the beautiful but allegedly untalented Vera Ralston. More about her later. Thanks to the taut direction of Joseph Kane and skilled, fluid editing, Dakota has a pleasingly fast pace with a jaunty, almost light-hearted air. There is not a wasted camera shot in this movie. It provides almost non-stop action from beginning to end, though it does so without an excess of violence. We get coach chases, buckboard chases, foot chases, horseback chases, a fight in a train car, a robbery on a riverboat, a riverboat wreck, burning wheat fields (looking suspiciously like file footage from The Westerner), a woman jumping off roofs, and a spectacular night-time finale shootout. As an added bonus, Munson leads a chorus of pretty dance hall girls in a charming period musical number. Dakota displays an authentic look and feel we wish we could find in more westerns from any period. The men wear suits and ties most of the time with their long-barreled six-shooters tucked into their waistbands under their coats. The women wear long, period dresses instead of butt-tight jeans. The men, even the bad guys are polite and helpful to women in keeping with Victorian sensibilities. The sets are well-turned out and convincing of the period. The story by Carl Foreman like the script by Lawrence Hazard is intelligent and engaging.

Dakota is one of John Wayne's "intermediate period" westerns -- that is intermediate between Stagecoach and Red River. Stagecoach raised Wayne out of the doldrums of the grade-Z western programmer circuit he had been stuck in through most of the 1930's. He was an "A" star now, but not yet really the big star he would later become. Still a star of the second rank like George Brent or Dennis O'Keefe. Through most of the 1940's, he was still being second-billed in "A" pictures behind such male stars as Robert Montgomery (They Were Expendable) and Ray Milland (Reap the Wild Wind) and top female stars such as Caludette Colbert (Without Reservations) and Joan Crawford (Reunion in France). It would take a magisterial performance in that Western of all Westerns Red River, released three years after Dakota, to raise Duke Wayne to the status of super star. But he was already showing the signs of what was to come in Dakota, completely relaxed and confident, with all the movements and looks of the mature John Wayne. He would feel confident enough of his stardom in the late 'forties to refuse to do any more movies with Vera Ralston for fear her bad acting would give him a bad name.

Critics then and now have gone on and on about how bad the pretty Ms Ralston's acting was, that she was only a star only because she was having a relationship with and eventually married the head of Republic Pictures Herbert J. Yates (39 years older than she!) But she didn't seem so bad in Dakota. She was lively and energetic to the point of athletic, as you would expect from a woman who came to public attention by her ice-skating ability. Not a Bette Davis by any means, but here adequate for a not undemanding part which shows her as not only devoted to her husband, but resourceful, clever and somewhat manipulative -- in a sweet, and gentle way. She did look slightly bewildered at times -- not surprising since the recent Czech émigré's English was so poor, she often had to phonetically memorize her lines without understanding the content. Not as bad as Bo Derrick, or many others. Whatever Vera lacked in dramatic panache, she made up for it by projecting a sweet, innocent -- not to mention sexy -- charm. Everyone has just jumped on an anti-Vera bandwagon because she was an easy target, being the boss's babe and all. John Wayne in spite of his later remarks, seems to have had good chemistry with her in Dakota. But after all, she was a real babe, and what man wouldn't throw a few sparks hugging up against that buxom but tight ice-skater's figure!

Dakota in a rarity amongst Westerns in having the male and female leads start the movie just married, and happily so against the opposition of her volatile father (Haas). No drifter and saloon floozy here. The love interests are a substantial married couple, so all the distracting courting business has already happened, and we can get on with the riding and the shooting. And there was enough of both and much else in this minor epic to satisfy nearly any aficionado of the horse opera.

Dakota is top-notch Western entertainment from Old Hollywood's Golden Era.

This is one of the worst John Wayne flicks of the 1940s. By this point in his career, Wayne was now a star and deserved better material and a better leading lady. If you compare this film with THEY WERE EXPENDABLE, which came out the same year, the contrast is great. DAKOTA is simply a B-western with lousy and very confusing writing. While it has good supporting actors in Ward Bond and Mike Mazurki, Vera Ralston as Wayne's wife is incredibly wooden and she sports a bizarre accent that can't be accounted for in the script (her dad seemed like he had a French accent and she was Czechoslovakian). Most of the time, she's kind of pretty to look at, but becomes more of an annoyance than anything else. It was hard to figure WHY Wayne would have married such an idiot in the first place! The only reasons she got ANY roles is that her lover was the head of Republic Pictures--otherwise, she was much more of a liability than an asset. As I already mentioned, the plot is completely convoluted--and I really had to struggle to figure out what was going on. Part of this COULD have been because the movie just wasn't engaging. This is a forgettable film and only of interest to big fans of John Wayne. There are so many better Wayne films available--try watching one of them first.

It's really interesting to look at some of these old movies from the 40s and 50s. They had a directness and economy of style and language that is lacking in so many movies and TV series these days.

Modern screen writers could learn a lot from watching them. Note, if you will, that few have the same writer and director - a fact that makes them far, far better than the vast majority of writer/director movies these days, certainly at least as far as story goes.

Dakota is typical John Wayne fare. John Wayne plays John Wayne and we love him for it. We know who the good and bad guys are and the script is not without its subtleties. We know who's going to win but not always who the casualties may be.

A (relatively) young Walter Brennan plays, er, Walter Brennan - yes, and that's why we love him! - and the whole thing is packaged in an economy. bite-sized package, ideal Saturday morning fare and, of course, a must for anyone who loves Westerns and John Wayne.

Side note - the plot does, in part, include 'fields of wheat;, a phrase that will resonate (possibly in an ironic way) with viewers in the UK in 2018!

This is not an award winning movie by any means- but with the fast paced action, this was a western that was enjoyable to watch. Some western movies move slow as it builds up excitement as the plot may have two or three action packed segments. However, this tale moves from one situation to another never slowing down for a rest making the movie seem even shorter than the 80 minute length. John Wayne and Vera Ralston worked well together with Wayne beginning that swagger that he was so famous for in later films. This being a low budget film, there are some rough spots in production. The use of very obvious backdrops and sound-stage fake backgrounds made the film look cheap but the story still held up well. An entertaining film that kept the viewer's attention from beginning to end.

Dakota finds John Wayne running off with Vera Hruba Ralston, daughter of railroad magnate Hugo Haas. A whim of Ralston's finds them on the way to Dakota Territory instead of the Duke's planned trip to California.

Before long Wayne finds himself mixed up with the local farmers and their running battle with town boss of Fargo, Ward Bond and his three loathsome sidekicks Mike Mazurki, Paul Fix, and Grant Withers. Mike Mazurki is a particularly nasty individual here, he probably has the best performance in the film.

Dakota was directed by Joseph Kane who directed at Republic a whole lot of Roy Rogers B westerns and he uses the same fast pace here. The running time is only 82 minutes and a Wayne film from Republic was an A product for that studio by 1945.

One big drawback in Dakota is the portrayal by Nick Stewart as Walter Brennan's crew on his river steamboat. It's a pretty bad stereotype one of the worst I've ever seen on film.

Dakota also shamelessly rips off the wheat burning scene from Samuel Goldwyn's The Westerner. I wouldn't be surprised if Goldwyn let Yates use some of the footage from The Westerner for a rental fee.

However fans of John Wayne and of westerns in general will like it.