The Westerner **** (1940, Gary Cooper, Walter Brennan, Doris Davenport, Forrest Tucker, Dana Andrews, Chill Wills) – Classic Movie Review 7154

Director William Wyler’s 1940 The Westerner stars Gary Cooper as moody, heroic cow-hand Cole Harden, who battles against dreaded hanging judge Judge Roy Bean (Walter Brennan) in an epic classic Western managed outstandingly well by director Wyler.

Cooper is on excellent form in one of his best roles, but the scene-stealing Brennan was the 1941 Oscar-winner for Best Actor in a Supporting Role for what is generally judged one of his best performances.

Judge Roy Bean befriends Cole, but he is trying to drive out the homesteaders, so Cole allies himself with the farmers, falls in love with the heroine, Jane Ellen Mathews (little known Doris Davenport), witnesses stampedes and fires, and takes part in one of cinema’s most violent and impressive fist fights (against Forrest Tucker as Wade Harper).

Tucker and Dana Andrews (as Hod Johnson) make their screen débuts. Also in the cast are Fred Stone as Caliphet Mathews, Paul Hurst as Chickenfoot, Chill Wills as Southeast, Lilian Bond as Lillie Langtry, Charles Halton as Mort Borrow, Trevor Bardette as Shad Wilkins, Tom Tyler as King Evans, Lucien Littlefield as the Stranger, Stanley Andrews as the Sheriff, Charles Coleman as Lily Langtry’s manager and Julian Rivero as Juan Gomez.

Stuart N Lake and James Basevi were Oscar nominees for Best Writing, Original Story and Best Art Direction, Black-and-White. The screenplay is written by Niven Busch, Stuart N Lake, and Jo Swerling from an original story by Stuart N Lake and James Basevi,

Producer Samuel Goldwyn was not impressed with Doris Davenport’s good work here and her career ended when she retired three months later after one more film Behind the News.

It meant that Brennan won a record-setting three Best Supporting Actor Oscars: for Come and Get It (1936), Kentucky (1938) and The Westerner (1940). He was nominated for a fourth, when he re-teamed with Cooper for Sergeant York (1941), but that time it was Cooper who won the Oscar.

Cooper was not happy and wanted to quit when he heard Brennan was to play Judge Roy Bean. Goldwyn assured Cooper his role would be expanded, but Cooper wrote to him: ‘I couldn’t see that it needed Gary Cooper for the part.’

When Goldwyn insisted he star, Cooper again wrote to Goldwyn indicating he intended to end their working relationship, but agreed to fulfill his contract and to ‘perform my services to the fullest of my ability, with the express understanding that I am doing so under protest.’

However, Cooper and Brennan made such an effective team that they made six films together: The Cowboy and the Lady (1938), The Westerner (1940), Meet John Doe (1940), Sergeant York (1941), Pride of the Yankees (1942) and Task Force (1949) and also appeared in The Wedding Night (1935) and Watch Your Wife (1926).

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 7154

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