On his return to home studio, Columbia, after directing "The Tuttles of Tahiti" on loan-out, Charles Vidor asked to direct a Randolph Scott western, The Desperadoes (1943).
Photographed in brilliant Technicolor by George Meehan (who, because of the Pacific Coast dim-out regulations, had to attempt night effects by daylight shooting with the use of filters, special make-up preparations, and the tripling of background lighting), the Robert Carson screenplay sets the old, familiar characters of Western folk-lore through their cliché-ridden paces:
For example, there's the bold and incipient young outlaw (Glenn Ford) who comes riding into a Utah town, ostensibly to commit a hold-up, but actually to lose his heart to the local scoundrel's (Edgar Buchanan's) little girl-innocent (Evelyn Keyes).
There's the lean and soft-spoken sheriff who realizes the kid is good at heart, and so helps him to evade the villains who try to pin a robbery and a couple of murders on him.
There's also the local burlesque queen with a heart of the purest gold (Claire Trevor, naturally) and the inevitable crooked proprietor (Porter Hall).
All this is enlivened by a couple of bar-room battles and a wonderful stampede.
Alas, "The Desperadoes" is yet another golden oldie that seems to have disappeared!
Photographed in brilliant Technicolor by George Meehan (who, because of the Pacific Coast dim-out regulations, had to attempt night effects by daylight shooting with the use of filters, special make-up preparations, and the tripling of background lighting), the Robert Carson screenplay sets the old, familiar characters of Western folk-lore through their cliché-ridden paces:
For example, there's the bold and incipient young outlaw (Glenn Ford) who comes riding into a Utah town, ostensibly to commit a hold-up, but actually to lose his heart to the local scoundrel's (Edgar Buchanan's) little girl-innocent (Evelyn Keyes).
There's the lean and soft-spoken sheriff who realizes the kid is good at heart, and so helps him to evade the villains who try to pin a robbery and a couple of murders on him.
There's also the local burlesque queen with a heart of the purest gold (Claire Trevor, naturally) and the inevitable crooked proprietor (Porter Hall).
All this is enlivened by a couple of bar-room battles and a wonderful stampede.
Alas, "The Desperadoes" is yet another golden oldie that seems to have disappeared!