(110 min) Released 1937-07-21
Director: Rouben Mamoulian
Stars: Irene Dunne, Randolph Scott, Dorothy Lamour, Elizabeth Patterson, Alan Hale
Genres: Musical | Western
Bootleg copy, very poor quality. Next viewing: perhaps buy the now-official release.
Even with 6 songs by Kern & Hammerstein, this doesn't feel like a musical. This feels like a straight drama illustrating the hardships of breaking into new technologies (harvesting and transporting oil). The fact that Mamoulian directed shocks me, because I didn't feel anything was special about this.
Oh, and I think I finally found a story by Hammerstein that didn't involve racial prejudice, but it did hit class (occupation) prejudice multiple times. Usually E.Patterson's character countered the malicious talk by dragging some skeleton out of the speaker's closet. That was fun.
(This is the 2nd of 3 pairings of Dunne and Scott, and the 3rd is less direct: he plays her shipwrecked nuisance in My Favorite Wife (1940), and most of that happens off-screen; Cary Grant is her co-star there.)
The video quality definitely hurts my appraisal, but so did the way RS treated ID (of course, their characters): he was quick to abandon her to his oil ambitions, even on their wedding day, and he was quick to dismiss her suggestions and contributions. In other words, he was a narcissistic misogynist. So this earns a rating to warn me away. The + is for ID.
Paramount, dir. Mamoulian; 5+
