Le Rendez-vous de 4 heures

A good film depends upon good dialogue as much as visual action, and the dialogue in this Western is certainly above average. Horace McCoy wrote the excellent novel, ' They Shoot Horses, Don't They ? ' and his expertise as a writer shows. The actual plot is functional, and conforms to the usual trope of good people winning over the bad, and the plot has been gone over several times in other reviews. Claudette Colbert is an acquired taste as an actor, and despite reservations I usually respond to her. Her delivery of lines is excellent, and she holds the film together with her strong presence. She is totally incapable of showing much depth of feeling, but her surface approach to others around her works in certain roles, especially comedy, and she knows a witty line when she sees one. Barry Sullivan was a weak foil for her, but then again it works. And there is one scene in the film which is exceptional; an elderly woman shooting down a gunman where others fail to do so. It is a total surprise and this again is thanks to the well written script. As for Colbert running a small press in a small town this is just believable, and that she depends on any man to help her is equally unlikely, but yet again she makes it work. I have seen this film quite a few times in my life and I always enjoy it. It is not a great film, but it is far better than most other reviewers suggest. All the required ingredients are there, and it is not just mindless entertainment. It shows quite clearly that people should be free of oppressors, and it has a political edge which veers more towards equality than domination.

Texas Lady marked Claudette Colbert's one and only western and I think this RKO film was probably something that they might have had Barbara Stanwyck in mind for. Colbert though she gave a decent performer really is not a western type. I suspect she wanted at least one on her film resume and took Texas Lady which was an inflated B film.

After learning the game of poker for years, Colbert takes Barry Sullivan on and beats him handily. Sullivan, a gentleman riverboat gambler had cleaned out her father who had embezzled money and then lost his ill gotten gains at the poker table and promptly killed himself. After restoring the family honor, Claudette goes to Texas where she's inherited a newspaper.

The paper is the paid for rag of the owners of the local Ponderosa, Ray Collins and Walter Sande. Claudette starts agitating for a railroad spur to come to town. But that will mean less dependency on the cattle barons and new people settling. The plot here has certain similarities to The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. Claudette also gets some attention from fast draw deputy Gregory Walcott who kills a couple of small ranchers in the service Collins and Sande.

In the meantime Sullivan comes to town as his reputation is shot to all heck on the riverboat scene. Being both southerners to the manor born they find a lot in common.

Texas Lady was a decent enough western, but it looks like it was edited considerably down and a lot of the story doesn't really make sense. And Colbert is just not well cast in westerns. But her fans might like it. It sure is a far cry from the comedies she did in the Thirties and Forties.

Prudence (Claudette Colbert) travels to an isolated Texas town where she has inherited the local paper. She finds the place ruled over by the two men who wrested the area from the Indians twenty-five years before, and it is clear they do not welcome her free-spirited intervention. Upon arriving there, the manager refuses to give up control of the newspaper, claiming that he has no rights to it. To recover what is hers, Prudence must ally herself with the least expected person, her support comes in the unexpected shape (Barry Sullivan) of the a card player whom she previously met in New Orleans, and whom she hates because he blames him for her father's death. Womanly Wiles New Her Weapons !. A Lady...till the fighting started...then...what a woman!. The pulse-beat of a great state pounds in each lusty scene!. When the cold-blooded cattle barons moved in...she taught the whole town how to fight...Texas style! They were giants until a soft-spoken lady cut them down to size!

Texas Lady went to the American director Tim Whelan (nightmare night) the last work in a big screen he directed. Likewise, it was also the last film for prestigious screenwriter and western expert Horace McCoy, who died after being released in the cinemas. Stars the French actress Claudette Colbert that was Oscarized in 1935 for¨It happened one night¨by Frank Capra . Colbert gives a nice acting as a strong-headed woman from the East inherits a newspaper in a small Texas town where the local cattle barons, who control the region, want her out of their hair. Next to her are two known actors in the genre Western: Barry Sullivan (The Last Straw) gambler she has just bested in New Orleans for her own family reasons.and Ray Collins who can be remembered as James W Gettys in the famous Orson Welles film Citizen Kane. Claudette Collbert is not the only one that has the famous Statue of Oscars, so that the artistic director Ray Rennahan also got the prize a double award with the films: ¨Gone with the wind¨and ¨Blood and sand¨. There's also a lot of familliar secondaries from the Forties and Fifities, such as: James Bell, Horace McMahon, Gregory Walcott , John Litel, Douglas Fowley, Don Haggerty, Walter Sande, among others.

The motion picture was professionally directed by Tim Whelan, but nothing special. His career began as a writer in Hollywood where he began working with Harold Lloyd. It was while living in England that he made his mark as a director. Directed more films in Britain than in his native country, often for BIP, Gainsborough and (most of his best output in the 1930s) Alexander Korda's London Films. He is best remembered for the colorful fantasy classic The Thief of Bagdad (1940). His career spans from silent films to the 1950s with several films such as Rage at dawn (1955) , Utopia (1951), This Was a Woman (1948) , Badman Territory (1946), Higher and Higher (1943) , The perfect gentleman (1935), The Murder Man (1935) , Safety Last! (1923), among others. Rating: 5.5/10. The motion picture will appeal to Claudette Colbert fans.

This was Claudette Colbert's second to last theatrical feature and if this was the quality of scripts she was being offered at that time it's no wonder she stayed away six years between this and Parrish. First of all she belongs in some urbane urban setting not the Old West and try though she might she is out of place there. Additionally she and Barry Sullivan, always a dull leading man no matter his costar, go together like oil and water sharing zero romantic chemistry. The script is ordinary and the direction not terribly exciting plus the film is soft and fuzzy with over-bright color. If you like Claudette or westerns it's okay but don't expect anything above the routine.

>>Claudette Colbert looking far too old and matronly for the part of an ambitious small-town journalist and card sharp Colbert certainly doesn't look matronly in this film - she's just as slender and attractive as ever.

I've just attended the WIllimasburg Film Festival, which showed this film. It has great meaning for Gregory Walcott- it was his "breakthrough" role, and his wife was pregnant with his first child, which she gave birth to a week after the movie finished filming.

In Walcott's biography, Hollywood Adventures, he tells the story of how he first met Colbert, who was concerned that he was so much younger than she was. But if older leading men can be put in with actresses 20 years younger than them, than women should be able to get the same treatment.

It is a bit episodic, but fun nevertheless.