A Heroína do Texas

I don't know if this movie was based on a true story, but it is believable, in that it was quite likely that there were mixed loyalties after the Civil War; some wanted to continue the fight, and some that wanted to put it behind them. I've seen plenty of movies where the Confederates are portrayed as bitter sore losers. This is the first time I've seen a movie with the Rebs trying to abide by the new rules, while being persecuted at the same time. Quite believable.

Somewhat Rare in 1938, a Big Budget Western with Plenty of Plot Involving the Post Civil-War Angst in Texas.

Randolph Scott in His Earlier Years before Maturing into the Granite Faced, Unshakable Moral Hero He would become in the Final Act of a Long Career.

Here He is a Fresh Faced Ex-Confederate that has a Progressive Attitude Concerning the War and is Ready to Forgive and Forget Unlike Most of the "Texans".

The North has its Villains Portrayed here by Carpetbaggers and Alcoholic Fat-Cat Politicians and Eager Plunderers.

Joan Bennett, a bit Miscast, but Pretty and Pretty Set in Revenge against the "Yankees" at All Costs.

The Highlight of the Movie is the Cattle Drive with one Fiery Sequence an Exciting Eye-Popper that is Late Thirties Hollywood Showing its Stuff.

Overall, the Themes would be Revisited in Future Better Westerns, but this is Worth a Watch for its Early Experiment in the Genre.

A Good Cast, quite a bit of Humor, and some Sprawling Outdoor Action make it quite an Entertainment.

It was the Period when the Studio System was Peaking.

This was the Type of Achievement that could Showcase the Movie Machine Approaching High-Pop-Culture-Art from a Conglomerate of Cooperative Creators.

After the Civil War, the former Confederates of Texas are suffering under harsh taxes, ill treatment and corruption by the Federal Government during the Reconstruction era. Texas ranch owner, Ivy Preston accompanied by her grandmother Granna and her old ranch foreman, now the trail boss, Chuckawalla is trying to move her cattle to market to sell them. The carpetbaggers are not only trying to seize her cattle without payment but want her ranch as well for their own ends.

A Confederate veteran named Kirk Jordan ( Randolph Scott) who has had enough of war and convinces her to drive her cattle to Abilene, Kansas rather than Mexico but he is upset with her when he learns she wants to use the money to help the South continue fighting.

The Texans is a solid western set around the aftermath of the Civil War and the carpetbaggers (its depiction is really well done, quite grim). It has a healthy mix of humour, adventure and action, namely in some exciting sequences where the cattle driving are braving the elements through conflict such as Comanches and carpetbaggers. Joan Bennett plays the heroine and she's quite breezy, Randolph Scott is Randolph Scott and is solid but it's May Robson as "Granna" who steals the picture. There's a little love rivalry thrown in with Scott and Cummings vying for Bennett. I wonder who gets the gal. Ah! That's a no brainer. There's some slow bits and too many subjects are shoved into his running time but overall a solid western.

Some of today's viewers might be a bit put off by what they see as racism in the beginning. Just remember not to judge other times by the current time in which you dwell. Black Union soldiers did make themselves unwelcome in post Civil War South. Carpetbaggers did go to the South to take advantage. The South WAS desperately poor after the war and unfair taxes were levied. These are historical facts which do not take sides. The writer took the facts and the attitudes, of both sides, and wove them into this story. Randolph Scott as a former Confederate who wanted the country reunited instead of taken over by Mexico. He said that all Yankees were not like the ones pushing their way around Texas, as he had met them in the war. The Union officer felt the same about many former Confederates. The movie showed this as the beginning of understanding between former foes. The acting was good. Perhaps one of Scott's better performances. Mae Robson was great and reminded me of Beula Bondi. Robert Cummings (well before his TV successes) was the former Confederate officer who could not accept the loss of the war. Joan Bennett was beautiful as the center of the love triangle between Scott, Cummings and herself. Character actors brought the film along quite well as they often do - Walter Brennan, Raymond Hatton, Frances Ford, Robert Barrat, Harvey Stephens. And there was Richard Denning with a small speaking part before his Mr. North fame. There was a most believable fight scene in the streets between Union troops and former confederates. It was well directed. There was an action scene of wagons, horses and cattle running from brush fire set by Indians that was very well done considering this was before digital special effects. The movie moved along nicely from the very beginning with plenty of Western excitement. Be sure to catch this Western if you get the chance. Although it has some twists and turns, it is still a good old fashioned Western.

This was a big budget effort for Paramount in 1938. Westerns after years of being relegated to the B picture market were just starting to come back with major player casts. This concerns the a fictional adaption of the first cattle drive from Texas to Abilene, Kansas following the Chisholm Trail. Howard Hawks did the same story a decade later with Red River only he did it far better.

Hawks in Red River contents himself with a line or two explaining the economic situation in Texas, post Civil War. Here a good quarter of the film is taken up with it. And the kind of racism expressed wouldn't fly today at all.

In the first 10 minutes of the film we see a black Union Army soldier sauntering down the street saying, "Union Army coming." with a crowd of defeated Confederates scowling. Never mind that that man had just fought for his freedom. Right after that the veterans see some of their brethren working the docks of the port of Indianola and one remarks that that wasn't the kind of job a white man should be doing. I'm sure that longshoremen everywhere got a charge out of that.

Anyway our two leads are Joan Bennett, an unreconstructed rebel who is the granddaughter of May Robson who owns a lot of cattle and land, but has no liquid assets to pay the Yankee carpetbagger taxes. She's involved in gunrunning to a group of rebels at large of whom her sweetheart Bob Cummings is one. He and his cavalry troop are going to join Maximilian in Mexico and when Max is finished putting down his rebels, they're coming back to throw out the Yankees. The other lead is Randolph Scott who is a Confederate veteran, but who realizes the war is over and we have to make a living.

His idea is to drive May Robson's cattle and sell them in Abilene where the railroad has reached. They have to sneak them out from under the nose of Robert Barrat, the local carpetbagger administrator who wants to seize them and the land for taxes imposed by the carpetbagger occupational government. That by the way sets the scene for the film's most memorable moment as May Robson drinks Robert Barrat under the table and Scott, Bennett and the rest of the hands sneak off with the herd.

After that it's the usual situations one expects from westerns involving cattle drives. They pick up Bob Cummings along the way whose troops have been annihilated by the Juaristas. Bob Cummings also tells Bennett of a new movement he's getting involved in called the Ku Klux Klan. By the end of the film with all the trials and tribulations they've gone through, guess who Bennett winds up with?

Later on this would be routine stuff for Randolph Scott. He and Bennett work well together. They get good support from Walter Brennan, Raymond Hatton, Harvey Stephens, Francis Ford, and most of all May Robson and Robert Barrat. A previous reviewer said Barrat is a buffoon and to be sure he is. Barrat is the kind of idiot that could only rise to the top in a situation like carpetbagger Texas. He probably is somebody's idiot brother-in-law and got the job through influence. That doesn't make him any less sinister. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

This film is also an example of how the studios and the recording industry work hand in glove. A song called Silver on the Sage was written by Leo Robin and Ralph Rainger for the film. It's sung around the campfire in the usual singing cowboy tradition that was so popular back then. It's sung by Eddie Dean who later became a movie cowboy star in his own right. But Paramount just happened to have THE number one recording artist of the century under contract at the time. They persuaded Bing Crosby to record it for Decca and it enjoyed a modest sale, not one of Bing's bigger hits. But Robin and Rainger did much better that year with a song they wrote for another Paramount star for The Big Broadcast of 1938. That would be Thanks for the Memory and the film's star Bob Hope. It won the Oscar for best song that year.

Nice film, good performances, but see Red River first.