High Lonesome * (1950, John Barrymore Jr, Chill Wills, Kristine Miller, Lois Butler, Jack Elam, John Archer) – Classic Movie Review 13,152

Alan Le May’s dour 1950 Western film High Lonesome stars John Barrymore Jr as a sulky young drifter, who arrives at a ranch beset by killings, and then goes haywire, becoming number one suspect in the murders.

Writer/ producer/ director Alan Le May’s dour-toned, below-par 1950 Western film High Lonesome stars John Barrymore Jr, Chill Wills, John Archer, Lois Butler, Kristine Miller, and Jack Elam.

In his second movie, John Barrymore Jr stars as sulky young drifter ‘Cooncat’, who arrives at a ranch in the Big Bend country of West Texas beset by killings, and then goes haywire, becoming number one suspect in the murders.

The cook Boatwhistle at the ranch of ‘Horse’ Davis (Basil Ruysdael) finds the drifter stealing food, and gives him the nickname Cooncat after the drifter claims he was wrongfully accused of murdering a man named Shell and has fled from the law. Horse doubts the drifter’s story, though his youngest daughter Meagan (Lois Butler) believes it.

Of course, it turns out that Barrymore Jr is innocent, a patsy for the actual bad guys.

In a handsome-looking Technicolor film shot on attractive locations, the acting is not too bad, and Barrymore Jnr is a strong, handsome, brooding presence, promising a career that never quite happened. But the movie is rather clumsily directed and dully written by Le May, who also wrote the classic Western novels The Searchers and The Unforgiven.

John Barrymore Jr, who had made his debut in the same production team’s The Sundowners [Thunder in the Dust] early that year, is John Drew Barrymore (his screen name after 1958), the son of John Barrymore and Dolores Costello and father of Drew Barrymore.

The cast are John Barrymore Jr as Cooncat, Chill Wills as Boatwhistle, John Archer as Pat Farrell, Lois Butler as Meagan Davis, Kristine Miller as Abby Davis, Basil Ruysdael as ‘Horse’ Davis, Jack Elam as Smiling Man, Dave Kashner as Roper, Frank Cordell as Frank, Clem Fuller as Dixie, Hugh Aiken as Art Simms, and Howard Joslin as Jim Shell.

It is shot on location in Antelope Springs and Marfa, Presidio County, Texas.

It is Le May’s only film as director.

Alan Le May also wrote Barrymore’s next film, Quebec (1951).

High Lonesome is directed by Alan Le May, runs 81 minutes, is made by Le May-Templeton Pictures, is released by Eagle-Lion, is written by Alan Le May, is shot by W Howard Greene, is produced by Alan Le May and George Templeton, is scored by Rudolph Schrager [Rudy Schrager], and designed by John B Goodman.

Release date: September 1, 1950 (US).

The Searchers was filmed in 1956 by John Ford and The Unforgiven was filmed in 1960 by John Huston,

John Drew Barrymore Jr in 1953.

John Drew Barrymore (born John Blyth Barrymore Jr.; June 4, 1932 – November 29, 2004)

Barrymore Jr made his film debut at 17  with a small role in The Sundowners (1950), a Western with Robert Preston. He needed his mother’s written permission as he was a minor, and his fee was $7,500.

After Quebec (1951), he starred in Joseph Losey’s The Big Night (1951) and in Thunderbirds (1952) with John Derek. His films were not particularly successful and he moved into TV.

© Derek Winnert 2024 – Classic Movie Review 13,152

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John Drew Barrymore (born John Blyth Barrymore Jr.; June 4, 1932 – November 29, 2004).