Valet d'argent

One of the few westerns that is in the catalog of Edward G. Robinson films is this one Silver Dollar. In it Robinson plays the legendary Horace A.W. Tabor of the Colorado Tabors who if you believed this version lucked into a vast fortune. I can't believe the real Tabor didn't have some kind of shrewdness in his makeup.

In the film Robinson's character is named Yates Martin and he's a big hearted big spender type who drives his wife Aline McMahon to distraction with his generous ways. She convinces him that he ought to open a general store, but he grubstakes miners for a return of a share. It pays off beyond anyone's wildest dreams when in played out gold fields rich deposits of silver are found rivaling those of Nevada's Virginia City. In no time he's Lieutenant Governor of Colorado and briefly a U.S. Senator.

He also gets himself a trophy wife in Bebe Daniels after Robinson tires of McMahon's hectoring ways. It's quite true that Robinson owed his fortune to pure luck. But prospecting and grubstaking prospectors is a matter of a lot of luck.

Here and in real life the story was a scandal of the Victorian Age as divorce was something not done in polite society. Today these people would make great fodder for the scandal sheets and Daniels would be the Victorian Age's Anna Nicole Smith.

Robinson is as expansive as he ever has been playing a modern crime boss either seriously or for laughs. He always had a knack for playing characters who liked to live it up when they were in the chips starting with his career role of Little Caesar.

As for McMahon she treads a thin line in her performance. You feel sorry for her when she gets flung out. But at the same time you can understand in more ways than carnal why Robinson did it.

Silver Dollar is a film I wish was shown more. It's Edward G. Robinson in an unusual, but at the same time familiar part.