Bandits de grands chemins

Three thieves in the old west decide to split up their money and go their separate ways. However Lance and Jersey try to double-cross Charlie and leave him. Some time later Lance and Jersey come across Charlie, who appears to be doing well as a rancher. However the mysterious Black Bart is robbing Wells Fargo stagecoaches with help from inside information. Things are complicated by the arrival of the beautiful singer Lola Montes who attracts interest from Lance, Charlie and Black Bart himself.

This is a standard western that never threatens to replace John Ford's westerns at the top of the list of greatest of all time. However it does have plenty of things that make it entertaining to watch. The story is a mix of mystery with some nice twists before the tragic but witty finale. The film never really sags and manages to mix action with romance with humour with western. It's not the best film ever made but it is a gentle bit of entertainment.

Dan Duryea is not great as Charlie - he feels too wooden, and as Black Bart he is totally covered by a mask and can't manage to bring his character to life. Jeffrey Lynn is good as Lance and benefits from having a double act with Percy Kilbride's Jersey. Yvonne DeCarlo is stunning as Lola but she doesn't have much to do and is just part of the studio's habit of adding feisty female roles to westerns of the time.

Overall this is nowhere near a classic but it is well shot and is quite fun.

Gorgeous Miss De Carlo often portrayed historic figures:from Sephora to Calamity Jane and from La Castiglione to Lola Montès (spelled "Montez" ,unlike in Europa).Many users probably know Max Ophuls' last opus (1954) which showed a Lola short of the readies,(Martine Carol)who had to work in a circus -under a cynical MC 's Thumb played by Peter Ustinov) Lola was king of Bavaria LudwiG Der Erste 's lover (not to be mistaken for gay Ludwig Der Zweite)and in the movie,you can hear Lola talk about the jewels he bestows on her;"you look at my jewels the way the king used to look at me" ) The story is a bit tongue in cheek and the tale of this masked brigand is not particularly exciting but Lola adds some spice to it.

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.

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!

Black Bart is an interesting movie and well above the norm for the standard studio product of its day.Not only is it splendidly photographed,with a lustrous use of colour that sets it apart from the herd,it has a wonderfully dry and laconic wit that adds a touch of verbal eloquence to proceedings.Indeed I was reminded at times of "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid"in the banter between characters some of which would have sat well in the mouths of characters in a Philip Barry movie or other practitioners of the drawing room comedy.The script is also insouciantly epigrammatical with a pleasing sense of amorality--its leading characters are outlaws and perfectly at home with themselves and their profession.Naturally.this being a 1948 movie they are not allowed to get away with it but the morality is quite unique for the period

We first meet Charles Bowers,later to become the title character,when he and his compadre "Lance"are about to be hung,a fact they greet with stoicism and flippant banter,when they are rescued by ex banker turned outlaw the grizzled veteran Jersey--well played by Percy Kilbride(old Pa Kettle Himself)They split up and Charles ,with the connivance of an old friend,sets himself up as Black Bart a black garbed highwayman making away with Wells Fargo bounty in a series of stagecoach robberies.Lance and Jersey re-appear,recognise him and try to cut in on the deal.Matters get complicated when Bart falls in love with Lola Montez the celebrated singer and dancer who reciprocates the feeling but insists Bart lay aside his illegal trade and turn to more legitimate pursuits

It is a well acted movie with Duryea and Kilbride especially fine and De Carlo enters into the spirit of things with a brash and outgoing performance

Minor but interesting and I enjoyed it .Give a go -you won't regret it