Le roi et quatre reines

At the age of 55 (nearly twenty years older than Jo Van Fleet who as usual gives the best performance as the gun-toting matriarch) Clark Gable still had the charisma to be ogled skinny-dipping in this charming and mellow yarn set against majestic mountains and with an excellent score by Alex North in which he arrives among a coven of widows. Since one of them is played by by the radiant Eleanor Parker (only three years younger than the woman she calls 'Ma') no prizes for guessing who finally gets him.

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.

The cinematography (Lucien Ballard) in this film is as luscious as the four pretty young brides (Eleanor Parker, Jean Willes, Barbara Nichols, and Sara Shane). From the opening credits to the end of the picture, it's pure classic 50's western in terms of rich and sumptuous color, this time by DeLuxe. While the plot isn't going to hold up to the scrutiny of some hyper film critics, it still allows for scenes that are full of sexy humor, as each bride tries her best to undress Clark Gable, perhaps none more than a seductive Jean Willes as Ruby. Jo Van Fleet, as the gun-toting mother-in-law of the four "queens", each of whom married one of her four outlaw sons, is mainly preoccupied with protecting the girls from any man who's bold or stupid enough to stray onto their out of the way property until her supposedly one living son returns from a botched bank robbery to reclaim his wife (whichever one that may be) and buried gold dust, and is the only obstacle between the girls and Gable, who only wants the gold, but is no fool when it comes to women.

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

Stranger Gable hears of a treasure of gold, hidden somewhere in a ghost town and guarded by an old woman and four widows. "Man's man" Gable throws all of his charms in the battle to find out where to find the treasure. As you see, the storyline is very very thin here. Most of the film is about Gable trying to charm the women, using every single trick in the book. There are a few minor surprises near the end, but this is really nothing special. Nice to catch on a rainy afternoon. 6/10