Produced by Samuel Goldwyn
Distributed by United Artists
Directed by William Wyler
Following along what we'll call the Garfield Trail, we come to 1940's The Westerner starring Gary Cooper and Walter Brennan. The Westerner certainly blazes no trail in plot (very run-of-the-mill farmers/ranchers feud) but the film is so well done it has become a standard of the genre often making it on lists of the top westerns. The plot is not at all the same as Tim McCoy's film of the same name from 1934. Cole Harden (Cooper) is brought into the town of Vinegaroon, Texas for stealing a horse and finds a corrupt town leader named “Judge” Roy Bean (Brennan) who passes sentence as he pleases and has a strange obsession with an English actress he has never met. Cole finds a way to use this obsession to get him out of a death sentence, forges an uneasy friendship with the judge, and discovers the goings on between sod busters and cattlemen. Judge and his men are in favor of keeping these new incoming agrarians out via any means necessary. Cole meets a young farmer’s daughter named Jane-Ellen Matthews (Doris Davenport) and wants to help. Judge goes too far in his war against the settlers and Cole vows to bring him to justice.
Gary Cooper plays a surprisingly warm character and is really a joy to watch. Surprisingly, Copper didn’t even want to do the picture thinking Walter Brennan would steal the show. Brennan is indeed amazing as the slightly off judge and took home an Oscar for his performance. Doris Davenport, who had come to Sam Goldwyn’s attention when auditioning for Scarlett O’Hara does incredibly well and yet it would be her last year in acting (having only ever been in five films). It appears she was in a car accident and walked with a cane after. The film is solid all the way around and one of my favorite Gary Cooper westerns. William Wyler directed this film (the first western from the director who gave us the most famous movie no one knows (The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)) and later Ben-Hur (1959).
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