La femme au fouet

So this starts out with our framed hero in a jail cell who agrees to marry a woman to get out of jail and then his buddy arrives, an assassin misses a shot at him, a sheriff(?) fires at them and his buddy kills the sheriff and then he rides after his new wife's pack train and when he catches up, he takes it over.

The assassin is following him but seems to appreciate his friendship and ends up getting all the money for (not) killing him anyway.

I don't like the Hollywood disrespect for the law, but the girl vs. Guy interplay is entertaining, and Rhonda Fleming is eye candy par excellence with every male viewer wishing he was in that covered wagon with her. (Why not just offer her a massage?)

Her father who owns the shipping company dies, but she's an Indian princess. It should have been clarified that she had been captured by the Indians and raised as one of their own.

And Iron Eyes Cody looking good! I wish he were still with us too.

Rhonda's bio says she had 5? 6? Marriages and ended up with a son and 4 great-grandchildren. She definitely should have had daughters too.

BEAUTIFUL woman!

This is a well-worn story about a man who marries to escape the hangman's noose, then sets about "taming" his reluctant bride. It manages to be sexist and racist at exactly the same time. We never find out, for example, why a woman who won the respect of an Indian warrior is completely unable to fight back against her erstwhile husband. Or why the members of her team are so eager to get a "real man" in the saddle when she seems to have been taking care of things just fine on her own. This only made sense in fifties Hollywood.

There's a really stupid scene where she horsewhips him and he actually catches the whip--the second time--then yanks her off her horse. Never mind that the first time probably would have lost him an eye, which would make it pretty hard to grab that whip! Then, he prevails in a fight against her Indian bodyguard where he spends the first two thirds of it getting beaten to a pulp. That's some second wind. Later, he successfully negotiates with some bloodthirsty Indians (as they all are in these flicks) after they reject her now she's his "squaw". Never mind that he has zero diplomatic skills and she's been negotiating with them for years. And the way he keeps rejecting her attempts to seduce him just to keep her keen and keep her from getting a hold on him--yeah, right. Like the women are just throwing themselves at him all the way down the trail.

Finally, neither of the leads is convincing in their roles. Madison is just a jerk who gets unrealistically lucky. Fleming flips her hair and scowls a lot, but is totally unconvincing as a fiery tomboy. The only reason you'd root for her is because you want to see Madison get tied to a runaway horse and dragged over a cliff before the film's end. The way that Madison tames Fleming is so predictable and has so few obstacles that it will irritate the heck out of you if you see women as anything but blow-up dolls. Even if you do see them as dolls, the total lack of suspense will bore you.

Total waste of time. Even the scenery's kinda dull. Give this one a big miss.

Here's an example of Plot #37 -- the couple forced to wed under unusual circumstances who seem to detest each other at first but who slowly, inevitably fall in love. Since the plot holds no surprises, the success of any film using Plot #37 largely depends on its two leads. Do they have the right chemistry? And does the script give them good dialog to toss back and forth?

Alas, Rhonda Fleming and Guy Madison lack the necessary spark, and both of them seem a bit over-the-hill for this kind of romance. Their lines are without style and wit and the course of their relationship manages to proceed both predictably and unconvincingly at the same time.

An air of sexism and racism pervades the movie and its depiction of the Old West, but in ways that are more amusing than offensive. Seeing Rhonda Fleming in her Indian maiden outfit, complete with feather, has a campy charm.

Not surprisingly, Guy Madison gets to take his shirt off in order to display the chest which once adorned the inside door of a thousand high-school lockers. Though slightly faded at age 35 or so, this chest is still easy on the eyes and it's so unshaved as to be downright furry.

I was intrigued by the idea of Bullwhip but the resulting story/plot is full of holes, awkward direction at times, and two leads with little romantic chemistry between them left me feeling very disappointed. The depiction of the Indians is overly simplistic and while I generally like Rhonda Fleming, I found it unbelievable that she was part Indian. This was my introduction to Guy Madison and I think he does a fine job, but the rest of the cast/performances were unremarkable. If you're a fan of the Western genre then check it out but for everyone else, I would giddy-up on by.

To be honest I had heard this was pretty bad before I decided to watch it, but I'm never one to let others influence my viewings, in fact I'm more likely to watch something out of defiance! Bullwhip had one thing going for me before the viewing anyway, the fact that Rhonda Fleming and those gorgeous eyes was in it. The picture isn't very good, and it is in fact very morally dubious, all the characters are corrupt and shifty in one way shape or form, all motivated by greed or egocentric victories, which is all well and good if the surrounding film can at least do justice to a bunch of despicable people to create a taut climax. Sadly it doesn't, and as the finale fills your eyes with sugar you can't help shouting out that you have been cheated into watching a pretty bad film. Nobody in the cast come out with any credit, with lead man Guy Madison particularly wooden in the extreme.

Not even the lovely Rhonda can make me recommend this to anyone. 3/10