Tue 21 Feb 2017
A Movie Review by Dan Stumpf: YANKEE FAKIR (1947).
Posted by Steve under Mystery movies , Reviews[7] Comments
YANKEE FAKIR. Republic, 1947. Douglas Fowley, Joan Woodbury, Clem Bevans, Ransom Sherman, Frank Reicher, Marc Lawrence. Written by Richard S. Conway and Mindret Lord. Directed by W. Lee Wilder.
I was drawn to this because I wanted to see if Douglas Fowley really played the hero, and while I wasn’t thrilled, I at least kept watching; along the way I discovered a fascinating bit of background and much to wonder at.
For one thing: Whence that title? Did they imagine folks would beat down the doors to see something called Yankee Fakir? And whence “fakir� I’ve never met an actual fakir, but they’re well-nigh ubiquitous in The Arabian Nights, so I know one when I see one and there just ain’t any here in this movie.
For another thing: This was released by Republic, Hollywood’s factory of low-budget thrills, but it’s an independent production by the semi-legendary W. Lee Wilder, older brother of Billy Wilder (you may have heard of him) and auteur of The Great Flamarian, Phantom from Space, Killers from Space, The Snow Creature and Man Without a Body.So you know what to expect. Yankee has none of the pace and polish one expects from a Republic western; in fact, it looks more like something that escaped from PRC or Monogram, what with Joan Woodbury and Douglas Fowley handling the leads.
I’ve mentioned Douglas Fowley here before: Doc Holliday on TV’s Wyatt Earp; slow-burning director in Singin’ in the Rain; slimy bad guy in dozens of cheap westerns and the actual director of Macumba Love. That’s the guy. Here he loses his familiar snarky moustache and dons a flattering hairpiece as a traveling salesman who falls for a Border Ranger’s daughter and turns detective when someone does the old man in.
Republic could have made a halfway decent B-western out of that — in fact they probably did, more than once — but Wilder pretty much fritters it away, with comic relief, a cute kid, local color, more comedy (I use the term loosely) and plot complications that pretty much go nowhere. Marc Lawrence, a figure associated with noir in general (and The Asphalt Jungle in particular) adds a moment of interest as a mysterious nasty, but not enough of them, even in a quickie like this.
But beyond the fascination of seeing a confirmed miscreant like Fowley cast solidly against type, Yankee Fakir raised an eyebrow — not when I watched it, but when I went to research it and encountered the story of the writer, Mindret Lord. There’s not room enough to recount it all here, but I suggest you look him up on IMDB for a story much more intriguing than this feeble movie warrants.
February 21st, 2017 at 8:57 pm
Seems like Doug Fowley got a bit of a break from typecasting in 1947; that year he also played a wisecracking reporter in Bela Lugosi’s only color film, SCARED TO DEATH.
I’ve always thought Joan Woodbury had the potential for a much bigger movie career.
February 21st, 2017 at 11:00 pm
Joan Woodbury has been a secret favorite of mine for a while now. I had the impression that no one else had heard of her. She was in 77 movies, some uncredited, most of them between 1935 and 1945. She made only five more after this one, and she seems to have never been on TV.
I don’t know as it was the highlight of her career, but she did play the leading role in the Brenda Starr serial.
February 21st, 2017 at 9:26 pm
Fowley fared a bit better as he aged s a cantankerous old buzzard type, but he did slime like no one else.
February 22nd, 2017 at 3:14 am
Steve,
Joan Woodbury was in a lot of movies, mostly of the B (and sometimes C) class. It surprises me that she never graduated to A features, even in supporting roles. Maybe she just wasn’t that ambitious or she had a lousy agent. Ah, the vagaries of Hollywood. Hey, at least she got to hang out with Mantan Moreland when they did KING OF THE ZOMBIES.
February 22nd, 2017 at 5:00 am
Research shows that Joan Woodbury had a long-standing marriage to Henry Wilcoxon, known for his own long association with Cecil B. DeMille.
It may be inferred that Ms. Woodbury’s scaling back of her own acting career was her idea; being in the DeMille circle enabled her to be in the business without being dependent on it.
February 22nd, 2017 at 12:39 pm
Mike, there might be something to that.
February 22nd, 2017 at 1:01 pm
Mike Doran —
Dead on about Joan Woodbury, but add that after her marriage to Wilcoxon broke up she got into the production of large scale live theatre in Los Angeles and was quite successful.