The Spoilers **** (1942, Marlene Dietrich, Randolph Scott, John Wayne, Margaret Lindsay, Harry Carey Sr) – Classic Movie Review 5520

Director Ray Enright’s stirring 1942 Western is the rousing fourth version of the much filmed 1906 Rex Beach Alaska gold rush saga (there are five movies). It is adapted for the screen by Lawrence Hazard and Tom Reed, shot in black and white by Milton Krasner, produced by Charles K Feldman and Frank Lloyd, and scored by Hans J Salter and Charles Previn.

John Wayne stars as Yukon adventurer as Roy Glennister who loses his share in a gold mine when he is tricked by a judge (Samuel S Hinds). He is sent to jail by crooked commissioner Alex McNamara (Randolph Scott) for murder, though he is innocent. But he breaks out and romances saloon entertainer gal Cherry Malotte (Marlene Dietrich), who finances his fight to save his gold claim.

The starry (though stereotyped) cast, have fun with the brawling, joking and romancing, and the highlight is a long climactic hand-to-hand saloon fight between Wayne and Scott. Margaret Lindsay is the dewy-eyed heroine, Richard Barthelmess plays the barman Bronco Kid Farrow (in his last screen role) and there are also Harry Carey Sr as Glennister’s partner Al Dextry, George Cleveland and William Farnum, who played Wayne’s role in the 1914 first version.

[The Spoilers alert!] All’s well that ends well with Roy getting back his mine and the girl as well.

Also in the cast are Russell Simpson, Marietta Canty, Jack Norton, Ray Bennett, Forrest Taylor, Charles McMurphy, William Haade, Charles Halton, Irving Bacon, Chester Clute, Harry Woods, Willie Fung, William Gould and Lloyd Ingraham.

Bestselling poet Robert W Service plays The Poet, in a fictionalised version of himself.

The film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Art Direction (John B Goodman, Jack Otterson, Russell A Gausman and Edward Ray Robinson).

There are four other versions: previously in 1914, 1923, in 1930 as The Spoilers (with Gary Cooper, William Boyd and Betty Compson) and a remake in 1955 as The Spoilers (with Anne Baxter, Jeff Chandler and Rory Calhoun).

Evelyn Brent plays Cherry Malotte in Rex Beach’s The Silver Horde (1930).

Dietrich, Scott and Wayne also appeared together the same year in Pittsburgh (1942).

© Derek Winnert 2017 Classic Movie Review 5520

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