Wed 19 Sep 2018
A Western Movie Review by Jonathan Lewis: FRONTIER MARSHAL (1939).
Posted by Steve under Reviews , Western movies[12] Comments
FRONTIER MARSHAL. 20th Century Fox, 1939. Randolph Scott (Wyatt Earp), Nancy Kelly, Cesar Romero (Doc Halliday), Binnie Barnes, John Carradine, Eddie Foy Jr., Ward Bond, Lon Chaney Jr., Chris-Pin Martin, Joe Sawyer. Based on the book Wyatt Earp: Frontier Marshal, by Stuart N. Lake. Director: Allan Dwan.
There’s something just a little too polished about Twentieth-Century Fox’s Frontier Marshal. The second cinematic adaptation of Stuart N. Lake’s largely fictional biography of Wyatt Earp, the film features the gentlemanly Randolph Scott as the titular character and Cesar Romero as his friend, the gambler/gunman Doc Holliday. Both actors are personal favorites of mine, but neither seem to completely immerse themselves in their given roles.
If Scott comes across as too refined – this is before he took on a more rugged screen persona in Budd Boetticher’s Westerns – Romero fails to present himself as a man with blood on his hands. This was supposed to be Tombstone, after all! Those criticisms aside, Frontier Marshal is a perfectly enjoyable pre-war feature that benefits strongly from a supporting cast including John Carradine, Lon Chaney Jr. and Ward Bond, all of whom deliver memorable performances.
Although the film nominally is about famed lawman Wyatt Earp, the central focus of the story is on Doc Holliday, as he struggles to reconcile his past identity as a successful East Coast physician with his current predicament as a man facing the end of his life with anger and regret. The two ladies who vie for Doc’s affection, the sophisticated and urbane Sarah Allen (Nancy Kelly) and the tough and jaded saloon girl Jerry (Binnie Barnes) are essentially peripheral to the film’s core.
Frontier Marshal is, above all else, a story about friendship, a buddy movie before there were buddy movies. While not half-bad, the film will always be overshadowed by John Ford’s My Darling Clementine (1949). And for good reason, as Ford’s reimagining of Tombstone and the gunfight at the O.K. Corral has an elegiac feel that Frontier Marshal simply cannot reach.
September 19th, 2018 at 11:53 pm
I think you have it about right, although Wyatt was from a decent family, so at least somewhat refined and Doc was a ‘dentist’ not an obstetrician As the good, but apparently nutty people at Fox made him in this film. And I personally like anything with Binnie Barnes who ended up owning a serious block of Columbia Pictures stock.
September 20th, 2018 at 12:10 am
And about buddy movies. I hope Gable and Tracy strikes a chord. San Francisco, Test Pilot, Boom Town. The two guys remain unequaled.
September 20th, 2018 at 6:27 am
Jonathan, you got it right on all counts. An okay Western, but disappointing considering the talents involved. as a point of interest (to me, anyway) Charles Stevens played the drunken Indian here and in MY DARLING CLEMENTINE
Barry, why, why WHY did you have to write that? Now all day I’ll be turning over images in my head of Clark Gable and Spencer Tracey as Doc Holliday & Wyatt Earp.
September 20th, 2018 at 9:09 am
I see that, Dan. Good thinking. Those men should come back, although in some ways they have never left, and make the picture. Only to be wished for.
September 20th, 2018 at 10:35 am
A Gable/Tracy version of FRONTIER MARSHAL could have played on a double-bill with John Huston’s unrealized 1940s version of THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING with Gable and Bogart.
September 20th, 2018 at 1:12 pm
To me Romero came closer to being Doc Holliday (Halliday in the film due to problems getting permissions from the latter’s estate) than Randolph Scott did playing Wyatt Earp. He’s a little too refined, as Jon said.
If Gable and Tracy were to have been cast in the film, it would have to be Gable as Holliday and Tracy as Earp, wouldn’t it, not the other way around?
September 20th, 2018 at 4:47 pm
A historical note here, Eddie Foy Jr. is playing his father Eddie Foy who was playing in Tombstone around the time of the famous gunfight.
Both Ford and Dwan both choose to make Holliday a surgeon rather than dentist for the big redemption scene. Both films and Sturges GUNFIGHT manage to forget three of the Earps were married (all to prostitutes) and ran the saloon. a whorehouse, and the gambling before becoming lawmen again. Ironically Scott is probably the closest physically to Earp.
I like the film and it is fun to watch with MY DARLING CLEMENTINE and see where the two differ.
Barnes is good as Big Nose Kate though, Holliday’s girlfriend. What is missing here that the Ford film has is the considerable weight of Walter Brennan as the head of the Clanton clan.
Ward Bond is the only actor to appear in both this and CLEMENTINE.
September 21st, 2018 at 2:38 am
Not quite so. Charles Stevens played Indian Charlie in each, and the following played small bit parts in both, or so I imagine:
Hank Bell
Harry Woods
Jack Kenny
Tex Cooper
Robert Milasch
Ward Bond was in both, but not in the same roles.
September 21st, 2018 at 12:48 pm
Steve, re Gable and Tracy. I think Gable is Wyatt, the larger more imposing person, and Tracy, should have no problem with the Doc.
I keep reading that Wyatt wasn’t refined. I think for the time and place he was. He came from a literate and middle class background, and for the most part, he was most certainly not a killer, but used his size and presence for intimidation. I wish I could recall where I saw this, but it was a conversation between Wyatt and one of his brothers, about not killing people.. The gist, Wyatt had shot someone and years later could not get it out of his head. In any case, I like Scott as Earp and Val Kilmer as Doc. But failing that, Gable and Tracy do just fine.
September 21st, 2018 at 7:18 pm
I didn’t think everyone would agree with me re Gable-Tracy and Earp-Holliday, simply because I keep going back and forth about it myself. I think it goes to show the quality of the actors involved to say that either actor could play either part and (in my opinion) the movie would still be a success.
September 21st, 2018 at 2:36 pm
Actually, there appears to be two earlier version of this take on the Tombstone western. In 1932 there was the film Law and Order, starring Walter Huston. Which was adapted from a W.R. Burnett novel by screenwriters John Huston and Tom Reed. Also in the cast are Harry Carey, Raymond Hatton and Andy Devine. The story is of a retired lawman who arrives in Tombstone and though he is uninterested in becoming marshal, events force him and his two surviving friends to take up the badge. Have heard about this film as a great pre code western, but haven’t seen it yet.
The other film is the first one titled Frontier Marshal from 1934, which stars George O’Brian and was adapted from the Stuart Lake novel, with input from Dudley Nichols. Ward Bond also appears in this version.
According to the plot synopsis given for both versions on IMDB, the 1932 version with Huston appears to be closer to John Ford’s My Darling Clementine. The reluctant hero forced to clean up the town. The O’Brian version seems to focus more on the romance between the marshal and a saloon girl. But there is appears to be very little on this film on IMDB. So, there could be more to the film than just this? Any movie with George O’Brien is on my list of must sees.
The Huston film is available to watch on youtube. But the 1934 version of Frontier Marshal appears to be unavailable. Probably due to Wyatt Earp’s widow suing the studio over adapting Lake’s book which she felt misrepresented her late husband?
A comparison of all four films would be interesting.
September 21st, 2018 at 8:57 pm
I’m a great fan of Burnett’s SAINT JOHNSON aka LAW AND ORDER with Huston as the Earp clone and Carey as Holliday (screenplay by John Huston). Devine stars in a rare straight dramatic role as Johnny the Deuce, an actual historical figure, who Earp saves from an angry mob.
Although he had been a buffalo hunter like Masterson, Earp, though pretty much a pimp and gambler, was well above the trail trash that populated many of the towns he acted as lawman in (pimping was a fairly common sideline among the town tamers as was gambling).
Based on the impression Earp made on early Hollywood types like John Ford, Tom Mix and William S. Hart, I get the impression he was quiet and authoritative and fairly well spoken.
Few of the town tamers were exactly leading citizen types, but many like the Earps and Masterson seem to have been more than presentable though there have been arguments for years that the Earps and Clantons in Tombstone were little more than rival gangsters, each owning a different branch of the law. Only at the end when Earp manged to get a U.S. Marshall’s appointment did that shift significantly to Earp’s favor.
Despite the impression given by many films, Wyatt was often as not Virgil’s deputy, not vice versa.