Il cavaliere audace

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.

I thoroughly enjoyed this early movie with John Wayne. He was very good in his part I thought. He was truly becoming the guy most Americans Identify with. I read elsewhere that movies Vera Ralston appeared in did not make money. I'm not sure why unless Americans just had a hard time with her accent. She was lovely, acted her part well, even added a good degree of humor from time to time. This movie was released on Christmas day 1945. I wonder if folks were so happy to have the war over and short of cash that they passed on the movie for those two reasons. John was well liked by then so he should have been a box office draw,0 and Vera was not well known such that she would be a deterrent.

Anyway, I liked it. Hope you do too.

I found it on Youtube. It had two or three short commercials, just a bit distracting not too bad.

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.

This is the most enjoyable "B" Western I'd seen in quite awhile. It is fast-paced, mostly light-hearted yet doesn't stint on the serious implications of the dramatic sequences; it makes you feel and believe the human tragedies that would occur if town boss Bender (Ward Bond, marvelously effective and subtle as smooth-talking and thoughtful villain) were to be successful at bankrupting his fellow townspeople, paving the future railroad towns with the rubes' broken dreams. John Wayne was starting to solidify the nucleus of the stock company of supporting actors he would make many movies with in the future (on hand besides Bond are Paul Fix, Walter Brennan, Grant Withers, Olin Howard, Bruce Cabot, and Mike Mazurki.

Wayne is perfectly cast as the rough-and-tumble gambler who falls for railroad heiress Vera Rhuba Ralston, much to father Hugo Haas' chagrin who is a rather slick and powerful operator himself. The twist here is that Ralston is as cunning and devious as her Dad and new husband combined, and is continually effective in steering things in the direction she wants them to flow. Not normally a Ralston fan, I thought she played the role with flair, attractiveness, and a perfect energy level. She doesn't have the on-screen chemistry with Wayne that Maureen O'Hara or Gail Russell later did, but when your husband owns the studio, you don't want to allow the chemistry to get too real-looking. Ona Munson as "Jersey" is hotter and makes both her scenes memorable. Walter Brennan is perfectly cast as a persnickety riverboat captain, and Nick Stewart provides able comic assistance as his blunt first mate(Racially stereotyped, of course, but still very funny, and not at all demeaning if you look at it objectively). Bond and Mazurki are excellent as the deceptive villains. Fix and Withers are professional and provide subtle special touches as Bond's hired guns.

Given the budget and the generally pedestrian record of Director Kane, this is actually a surprisingly well made. My demands/expectations of this oater were small when I tuned it in on the Encore Western channel. I was looking for a fast-paced, check-your-brains-at-the-door oater to have on in the background as I picked up around the apartment. Instead, not only is it tautly directed, fast-paced, wry, and well-acted, but it has an extremely well-crafted adapted screenplay from Carl ("High Noon") Foreman. The insights conveyed by the script, even including some of the background and "throwaway" lines, are literate and register long after the lines have passed.

Overall, this movie can be recommended on many levels. Deapite it's quite modest roots, it is a durable, high-spirited, well-acted, and well-directed oater that also is exceptionally well-written. Not the type of title that will impress your art-house buddies, unless they accept your challenge and actually watch it before they write it off. Those actually watch it are in for special treats.

This was one of those B-movie Westerns John Wayne had to pay his dues, and learn his craft in, on his way to superstardom and becoming a household name. His acting chops, while coming along and becoming more multidimensional, are still developing, and he gets by more or less on his charisma and big smile. Joseph Kane provides decent, pedestrian direction--all of the exciting scenes are directed by Wayne's longtime associate, Yakima Canutt (the one who would later direct the outstanding chariot race in 'Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ'), and Vera Ralston is great as the loving wife who just seems to do the wrong thing at the worst possible time.

Ward Bond and Mike Mazurki are excellent as the bad guys, and Walter Brennan (as the most bipolar ship captain one will EVER find in cinema) and Nick Stewart (as his harped-on assistant) steal every scene they're in. Ona Munson even throws in an entertaining song-and-dance number, and provides an interesting love possibility for Wayne, if he wasn't such a one-woman guy.

This was released on Christmas Day in the States, and it's no lump of coal in one's stocking, but a small, likable gift for fans of the genre. Worth a watch if you like Westerns, and a purchase and rewatch for Wayne enthusiasts.