Un re per quattro regine

The King and Four Queens marked the fourth time Raoul Walsh tried his hand in directing a motion picture in Cinemascope, the first three of them being Battle Cry, The Tall Man and The Revolt of Mamie Stover the second of them being also the first film out of three in totality that Walsh made with legendary Clark Gable.

In The King and Four Queens Gable plays a handsome middle-aged adventurer Don Kehoe, known in the West for his skills in using a gun who comes to a rancho called Wagon Mound with its entire population consisting of five women, four of them being beautiful widows of the McDade gang brothers recently killed while attempting to rob a bank. They are led by a tough middle-aged Ma McDade (Jo Van Fleet) who is quite feared and respected not only by the four young widows under her command but also by a population of all villages and towns a few hundreds miles around the ranch. Promptly upon our hero's arrival, the rivalry among the four sisters as about conquering of Don Kehoe's heart ensues, resulting in many insignificant troubles manly for the old mother-chief. The purpose of Don Kehoe's joining of such a pleasant company nonetheless is a large sum of money that, as a word goes around, is hidden at the ranch and which hiding place he ought to find by any means.

Overall the average Western as it is, The King and Four Queens provides much less viewing pleasure then one may expect from an average one, but nonetheless it has its interesting moments and is a worth watching experience for a genre fan. 6/10

Below average with a dumb sequence of dance in a living room with no one playing the music. The music was only playing on the soundtrack! Eleanor Parker and Jo Ann Fleet were interesting, not exceptional. Some stunt riding at the start of the film, that had little to do with the story line, was noteworthy.

Surely stars like CLARK GABLE and ELEANOR PARKER deserved better material at their home studio than this trifle about hidden gold and its effect on The King (Gable struts around like he's just left his throne for some slumming in a western shack), and four Queens (lovely looking ladies who seem out of place in this mock western).

It's a light-hearted romp for all concerned, except JO VAN FLEET who gives a dynamo performance as the tough old westerner who is hiding the loot from a bank robbery committed by her now deceased sons. When Gable comes sniffing around to discover the loot (which he endeavors to do by charming the four widows into revealing where the gold is hidden), it sets up a series of mildly suspenseful scenes where we wonder how the whole thing is going to end.

Since it's all played in rather tongue-in-cheek style with Gable handling the ladies with his usual masculine charm, it makes a rather faint impression when the tale ends without much of a bang and maybe one or two revelations.

Credit has to go to Gable and his co-star ELEANOR PARKER, both of whom share some effective moments in a rather weak tale that comes off as mildly disappointing as they ride off into the sunset together.

Clark Gable dreamed up some sweet con game to do four lovely widows and their mother-in-law out of some stolen loot that their late husbands an outlaw brother gang have robbed.

One McDade brother is still alive, but we're not sure which one. And through force of personality their mother-in-law is keeping them in a ghost town hide out until he returns for what's his. If stolen loot can be considered his.

Gable arrives in town and woos all the women who don't need much encouragement. No male companionship for seven years, got to be tough on a gal. The women are Eleanor Parker, Jean Willes, Sara Shane, and Barbara Nichols.

The King and Four Queens though Clark Gable is billed above the title, this picture really belongs to Jo Van Fleet. 1956 was a good year for her, Jo also turned in an outstanding performance as Doc Holiday's gal pal Kate Fisher in Gunfight at the OK Corral. Her's is the dominant performance of the film. It has to be or the idea that these women wouldn't have just overpowered her and forced Van Fleet to tell where the loot is becomes ludicrous.

Lots of sexual innuendo in this film, very much a precursor to the adult TV westerns that were to come soon. One of the more interesting of Clark Gable's post World War II films.

The King and Four Queens is directed by Raoul Walsh and written by Margaret Fits and Richard Alan Simmons. It stars Clark Gable, Jo Van Fleet, Eleanor Parker, Jean Willes, Barbara Nichols and Sara Shane. A CinemaScope/DeLuxe Color production, music is by Alex North and cinematography by Lucien Ballard.

Utterly delightful froth! Plot essentially finds Gable as a crafty drifter who learns about a group of women holed up in a ghost town who are sitting on a hoard of stolen gold. The four beauties, and their tough as old boots mother-in-law, are the wives and mother of outlaw brothers who stole the gold but who are now all presumed dead. Gable romances the four dames with the intention of locating the gold and clearing off first chance he gets, but that is far easier sounding than it is in principal!

It's all a set-up for a tale of sexual frustration and subversion of male dominance. That the Production Code renders much of the narrative to suggestion, choice scripting and fill in the gaps ourselves moments, is unfortunately a given, but it's all played with a glint in its eye and there's still a cheekiness, a sexiness, about the picture that strikes the right chords. Sometimes it's an uneasy blend of drama and comedy, but when it hits its straps, such as a wonderful dance sequence, it has the quality to land the smile firmly on your face. And this even if the final is somewhat an anti-climax.

Production wise it's a beauty. The cast are having a great old time of it, with the four younger ladies revelling in flirting about with the older and distinguished Gable. But it's Van Fleet who owns the movie, her tough old buzzard act is laced with maternal sadness and stoic strength and it underpins the whole story. Ballard's colour photography is gorgeous, with the location filming out of Calabasas, Snow Canyon and St. George proving to be magnificent backdrops, while North's musical accompaniments are pleasingly non obtrusive.

Neither uproariously funny or dramatically potent it's a film caught somewhere in the middle of both. Yet on this occasion it really doesn't matter, it's like a good old glass of bourbon, enjoyably warm while ingested but the buzz soon wears off at closing time. 7/10