Bandits de grands chemins

I was born in 1948 and many years later would see this movie as a young man who loved to watch movies with my mom. Unlike today's F- bomb, rape and blood, this movie is just a decent way to spend some time with family. Characters do not have to rip a woman's clothes off to reveal the obvious, she is beautiful. I still enjoy watching this good little movie.

This film starts with two outlaws by the names of "Charles E. Boles" (Dan Duryea) and "Lance Hardeen" (Jeffrey Lynn) being led to a hanging tree out of town after committing several crimes. However, before the nooses can be put around their necks another outlaw named "Jersey Brady" (Percy Kilbride) ambushes the hanging party and springs his two friends. Once freed Charles decides to split up from the other two and heads for California with all of the money taken from a previous heist. Not long afterward he dons a mask and upon assuming the nickname of "Black Bart" proceeds to rob stagecoaches belonging to Wells Fargo. As luck would have it one of the stagecoaches he robs has both Lance and Jersey as passengers along with a famous dancer from Europe by the name of "Lola Montez" (Yvonne De Carlo). Needless to say, their lives become intertwined from this moment on. Now, rather than reveal any more of the film and risk spoiling it for those who haven't seen it I will just say that this was a watchable Western movie for the most part. Although I liked the performances of Yvonne De Carlo and Percy Kilbride to a certain extent, to be quite honest I didn't think Dan Duryea possessed the necessary screen presence to handle the starring role. Likewise, I also thought some of the scenarios were a bit too fanciful and unrealistic for my tastes. Again though, it's certainly watchable and worth the time spent if one is inclined to movies of this type. I rate it as average.

This film manages to be relatively non-formulaic, and even more non-historical, though the real Black Bart was indeed named Charles E. Boles as portrayed. British-born Boles, however, did not conduct his outlaw career as a Zorroesque black-clad horseman, but hiked to all his holdups and wore a long linen duster, with a flour sack over his head. He was also pushing 50 when he started robbing the stage. So much for a romantic image! If the intention was to make Bart/Boles a dashing figure, I think another actor would have been a better choice than Dan Duryea, who after all pretty much built his career on playing creeps. But it's always interesting to see a departure, and the script is more clever than that of the routine horse opera of the day.

As Lola Montez, Yvonne De Carlo makes no effort at a real characterization of the famous Countess (former mistress to Ludwig I of Bavaria), but acts-- well, like Yvonne De Carlo, delivering her lines in her usual flat New World tones. The witty, volatile and multilingual Lola (nee Eliza Gilbert), though Irish by birth, affected a sort of Spanish accent to go with her assumed Sevillian identity. De Carlo's dancing, I fear, bears little resemblance to Lola's, but it's always a pleasure to watch Yvonne in her early roles; this film came only three years after her dazzling debut in 1945's "Salome, Where She Danced", in which she played a quasi Lola Montez, thereby confusing the record considerably.

In reference to this: the real Lola never danced as Salome nor visited Arizona, and the town there called "Salome, Where She Danced" was named in 1904, and for quite another lady. To play Lola or a quasi-Lola, De Carlo does certainly fit the bill visually as a stunning blue-eyed brunette with a memorable figure. As to Lola ever encountering Black Bart-- well, when he began his career as a highway robber in 1875 Lola had been in her grave for fourteen years. So much for romance!

Dan Duryea is Charles Boles, a respectable rancher in Gold Rush California. He's also Black Bart, who holds up stage coaches. Wells Fargo has put a $10,000 reward on him. When his old confederates, Jeffrey Lynn and Percy Kilbride come to town, they take jobs with Wells Fargo. They're also working for themselves when they recognize Duryea and want in. However, Yvonne De Carlo has come to town -- she's Lola Montez -- and she and Duryea fall in love.

It's a highly entertaining and beautifully shot A western from Universal, directed by Henry Hathaway. It's also the ahistorical piffle that infused westerns. Lola Montez (real name: Marie Dolores Eliza Rosanna Gilbert, Countess of Landsfeld) was indeed in the US and performing on stage by about this time, she died in 1861. The real Charles Boles/Black Bart flourished as a stagecoach robber from 1875 through 1883, was captured, spent four years in prison, was released in bad health and disappeared. No one in Hollywood ever let a little thing lack facts get in the way of telling an amusing story.

The highlight is Miss De Carlo's dances as Montez. She had spent half a decade playing uncredited eye-candy roles in Hollywood, before shooting to recognition in SALOME WHEN SHE DANCED. I remember her as Lily Munster, of course, and as one of the cast in Sondheim's FOLLIES; like many a beautiful woman, she had a great sense of humor and comedy about her beauty. She died in 2007, age 84.

Can you be disappointed if you had no expectations in the first place? In this case: yes. This less than a classic western has an above average idea it fails to deliver. The triangle romance between the zorro- like masked villain, the posing- as- a- good- guy villain and the European dancer- and- mistress- to- the- emperor- of- Austria- turned- saloon singer is actually quite original.

The film, however, is not. The standard western imagery and unimaginative cinematography/direction condemns this film into the "forgettable"- category. Still it must be noted that there is no hero in this western: just two outlaws and a corrupt dame. Although they get their due in the "grand" finale, themes like that are not frequent in the westerns of the classic era but associated usually to westerns in the late 60's and 70's.