La chevauchée de l'honneur

Three happy-go-lucky Western outlaws, fresh from robbing a stage, stumble on a particularly nasty land grab and break it up, and win the heart of the young girl living on the ranch. Circumstances intervene and two of the outlaws become Texas Rangers and the other becomes a notorious outlaw. Complications ensue, when our new rangers are called upon to arrest the notorious outlaw.

This is a perfectly decent Western, though the plot is extremely generic. The first half-hour or so, showing our three charming outlaws and our young heroine is thoroughly bland -- interesting only that McDonald Carey is really the lead in this portion of the movie, and he is a charming one at that. William Holden plays his role as "youthful sidekick" and Willam Bendix (!!) has the Gabby Hayes part.

As the movie goes along, something fairly unusual in a genre film happens. The characters grow and change. Holden becomes the stalwart hero torn between friendship and duty. William Bendix is forced to choose which of his two friends he will support. McDonald Carey goes from charming outlaw to charming black-hearted villain. All the actors pull it off well. The heroine -- who goes from feisty youngster to babe in cowboy boots, doesn't do so well This ain't John Ford. But it is a pleasant surprise once the plot get going.

Of course it is a flawless western, but so predictable, despite this excellent cast, directing, performances.... For once, I appreciated a lot Macdonald Carey in a role where he doesn't appear as bland, wooden, as usual in other features. Here, his character is thicker than we could expect, whilst William Holden, on the other hand, brings no surprise at all. But, as I have always said, villains - or at least ambivalent or ambiguous characters- are far far more interesting than hte good ones, the white knights in their shining armors....fABULOUS Victor Young's score belongs to the qualIty of this movie directed by British actor Leslie Fenton, who also gave us WHISPERING SMITH.

Three outlaw friends find themselves on opposite sides of the law when two of them join the Texas Rangers to get themselves out of a tight corner.

Lively western basking in splendid technicolour and very good performances, especially by MacDonald Carey, who plays a smug outlaw with villainous ambitions. His character becomes more cold blooded towards the end. The film has enough drama, tension with the three friends splitting in different directions, and Mona Freeman - who had a crush on MacDonald's character at first - eventually changes her mind when seeing his true colours and prefers Holden, who does well in this well-directed western.

Paramount's remake of their own 1936 western "The Texas Rangers" has three small-time stagecoach robbers separated after tangling with a sniveling extortionist and his cohorts in 1879 Texas; two of the men inadvertently join the Texas Rangers and find that working for the right side of the law really suits them, while the third man becomes a notorious outlaw. Despite some confusion in the character motivations and loyalties, this is an astute, absorbing drama with beautiful photography and solid performances. Who would've ever guessed Macdonald Carey could be a worthy opponent for William Holden? Dressed all in black, with a smug expression and heavy-lidded eyes, Carey is a surprisingly formidable villain. Holden, despite several sigh-heavy movie star close-ups, is very convincing with a gun and a horse; his character's playing both sides, while also falling for tomboyish Mona Freeman, provides the heart of the story, and Holden is never less than exciting to watch. Extremely well-directed by Leslie Fenton, with fine supporting work by William Bendix and a bouncy score by Victor Young. *** from ****

I first watched this 1949 Western unremarkably ditected by Leslie Fenton in the mid-1970s. I was then around 17, and I did not like it, finding among other things that Mona Freeman looked too young for the part, that mediocre color cinematography did not make the most of mountains and other landscapes, that the dialogue seemed trite and stale, among other minuses.

McDonald Carey delivers a suave, villainous, deceptive performance that steals the show. He abandons his stagecoach-robbing partners, William Bendix and Holden, to seek better pay with cattle rustler and criminal kingpin Alfonso Bedoya (whose role is surprisingly short, considering his unforgettable part in TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE one year earlier).

Watching STREETS OF LAREDO a second time nearly 50 years later, this time I enjoyed it more, though I still see it as a rehash of ideas in Westerns at the time, the dialogue stale in parts, Holden underused. But this time Freeman seems to grow up into an adult woman during the movie.

Good pace, some humor - especially by dimwitted Bendix - make it worth watching at least once 7/10.