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Just maybe the most shamelessly enjoyable of Cecil B. DeMille's pseudo-historical epics, this rumbustious frontier saga offers a three-for-one Western legends combo--Wild Bill Hickok, Buffalo Bill Cody, and Calamity Jane, all cutting up in the 1870s, with George Armstrong Custer and Abraham Lincoln thrown in for good measure. (Wait a minute, Lincoln was assassinated in 1865--oh, never mind.) Truth to tell, Buffalo Bill doesn't really pull his weight, since (1) he is hopelessly distracted by virtue of having recently married and (2) he's played by James Ellison, an eternal juvenile normally relegated to second-banana duty in Paramount's Hopalong Cassidy series. However, Gary Cooper's Wild Bill and Jean Arthur's Calamity supply enough star power to light up the Dakotas and parts of Missouri.
Every once in a while, DeMille and his small army of writers stumble upon an actual historical fact. Bill Cody did fight to the death with an Indian chief named Yellow Hand. George Custer and James Butler Hickok did both buy the farm in the summer of 1876. (Custer's Last Stand is handled imaginatively, if cheaply, as a vision narrated by a wandering Cheyenne warrior--none other than C.B.'s son-in-law Anthony Quinn in one of his earliest screen appearances.) Jack McCall (veteran weasel Porter Hall) did find himself in Deadwood, South Dakota, at the same time Wild Bill was drawing aces and eights in a poker game ... though McCall was not necessarily affiliated with DeMille's favorite villain, Charles Bickford, in the business of running guns to the Indians. --Richard T. Jameson
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Most helpful customer reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
Faux Historical Epic; Nevertheless Engaging Entertainment!,
By Nix Pix (Windsor, Ontario, Canada) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Plainsman, the (DVD)
"The Plainsman" represents the directorial prowess of Cecil B. DeMille at its most inaccurate and un-factual. It sets up parallel plots for no less stellar an entourage than Wild Bill Hickok (Gary Cooper), Buffalo Bill Cody (James Ellison), Calamity Jane (Jean Arthur), George Armstrong Custer and Abraham Lincoln to interact, even though in reality Lincoln was already dead at the time the story takes place. Every once in a while DeMille floats dangerously close toward the truth, but just as easily veers away from it into unabashed spectacle and showmanship. The film is an attempt to buttress Custer's last stand with a heap of fiction that is only loosely based on the lives of people, who were already the product of manufactured stuffs and legends.TRANSFER: Considering the vintage of the film, this is a moderately appealing transfer, with often clean whites and extremely solid blacks. There's a considerable amount of film grain in some scenes and an absence of it at other moments. All in all, the image quality is therefore somewhat inconsistent, but it is never all bad or all good - just a bit better than middle of the road. Age related artifacts are kept to a minimum and digital anomalies do not distract. The audio is mono but nicely balanced. EXTRAS: Forget it. It's Universal! BOTTOM LINE: As pseudo-history painted on celluloid, this western is compelling and fun. Just take its characters and story with a grain of salt - in some cases - a whole box seems more appropriate!
3.0 out of 5 stars
FAUX HISTORICAL EPIC - FLASHY BUT INACCURATE,
By
This review is from: Plainsman, the (DVD)
"The Plainsman" represents the directorial prowess of Cecil B. DeMille at its most inaccurate and un-factual. It sets up parallel plots for no less stellar an entourage than Wild Bill Hickok (Gary Cooper), Buffalo Bill Cody (James Ellison), Calamity Jane (Jean Arthur), George Armstrong Custer and Abraham Lincoln to interact, even though in reality Lincoln was already dead at the time the story takes place. Every once in a while DeMille floats dangerously close toward the truth, but just as easily veers away from it into unabashed spectacle and showmanship. The film is an attempt to buttress Custer's last stand with a heap of fiction that is only loosely based on the lives of people, who were already the product of manufactured stuffs and legends.TRANSFER: Considering the vintage of the film, this is a moderately appealing transfer, with often clean whites and extremely solid blacks. There's a considerable amount of film grain in some scenes and an absence of it at other moments. All in all, the image quality is therefore somewhat inconsistent, but it is never all bad or all good - just a bit better than middle of the road. Age related artifacts are kept to a minimum and digital anomalies do not distract. The audio is mono but nicely balanced. EXTRAS: Forget it. It's Universal! BOTTOM LINE: As pseudo-history painted on celluloid, this western is compelling and fun. Just take its characters and story with a grain of salt - in some cases - a whole box seems more appropriate!
4.0 out of 5 stars
CALAMITY JANE,
This review is from: Plainsmen (VHS Tape)
On September 17, 1868, while fording the south fork of the Republican River in what is now Colorado, General "Sandy" Forsyth was ambushed by 600 Cheyennes and Arapahoes. Outnumbered ten to one, Forsyth and his troops took refuge on a brushy island in the middle of the river and for nine days stood off one of the fierest charges in the history of Indian wars. The ten years which followed this gallant episode saw the final defeat of the Indians on the Northern half of the Great Plains. Some 300 battles were fought, chiefly against the Sioux and Cheyennes. In 1876, the two nations rallied to wipe out General Custer's regiment on the Little Big Horn. By 1880, Indians were no longer a power on the plains. Cecil B. DeMille, the producer of super-colassal spectacles of the thirties and forties goes the American West for THE PLAINSMAN. The film opens with a prologue shot of President Lincoln and his Cabinet, from then on compresses many actual events in the history of the Great Plains. Its hero and heroine are two of the most famous characters of the West "Wild" Bill Hickok and "Calamity Jane" ably portrayed by Gary Cooper and Jean Arthur (whose Calamity is decidedly more glamourous - with rouge and mascara applied - than was the real Martha Jane Canary!) In one segment, the Cheyennes ambush Buffalo Bill for twelve minutes ; it was considered quite an exciting climax to 1937 audiences.
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