Tall In The Saddle (DVD)

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Duke. The Duke. Big John. Marion Morrison. Call him what you will, John Wayne was one of the biggest stars Hollywood's ever seen, both in physical size, 6'4", and box-office appeal.

Wayne made a whole slew of low-budget kiddie Westerns in the early thirties before hitting it big with John Ford's "Stagecoach" in 1939, whereupon his name began to register in the middle tier of filmdom's roster of big-time celebrities. It wouldn't be until the late forties, though, with things like "Fort Apache" and "Red River," that he would rise to the top of his game, nailing down the title of Tinseltown's most-popular actor through most of the fifties and well into the sixties.

With 1944's "Tall in the Saddle" Wayne returned to his roots, so to speak, with a conventional B-grade cowboy flick. It's not a great cowpoke picture by any means, but it is fun, and it established Wayne's quiet, resolute, squinty-eyed screen persona like nothing before. Plus, it's sure got a great title. In fact, both the picture and the title sum up everything good and noble about the Western genre.

Besides that, the movie co-stars George "Gabby" Hayes, and who doesn't like everybody's favorite comical sidekick? I mean, you'd have to be a pretty mean, low-down varmint not to like Gabby Hayes. Oh, man, don't even ask "Who's Gabby Hayes?" I don't want to hear about it, young fella, cuz them's fightin' words, an' this town ain't big enough for the both of us.

Anyway, what we've got in "Tall in the Saddle" is more than a run-of-the-mill, old-time oater, because it's got a little mystery story thrown in and a touch of romance, besides. So, it's kind of a three-for-the-price-of-one deal, along with Big John and Gabby.

Wayne plays your classic Western hero who rides into town from out of nowhere, with no discernable past and only the single name Rocklin to go by. He's in Santa Inez to work on a nearby ranch, the KC, owned by one Red Cardell. But when he arrives in Santa Inez, he discovers that Red and his foreman were shot in the back about three weeks earlier, and his prim-and-proper niece, Clara Cardell (Audrey Long), and her domineering aunt (Elizabeth Risdon), have just arrived out West to take over the place. The two ladies have left the financial arrangements in the hands of a local lawyer and snake in the grass, "Judge" Robert Garvey (Ward Bond, one of Wayne's real-life drinking buddies and one of Hollywood's most recognizable character actors).

Next to the KC ranch is a rival spread, the Topaz ranch, run by a high-spirited horsewoman named Arleta "Arly" Harolday (Ella Raines), her brother (Russell Wade), and her stepfather (Don Douglas). No sooner does Rocklin arrive on the scene than the two women, both young and beautiful, naturally, begin to set their eyes on the handsome stranger. But Rocklin says he despises women--in his quiet, soft-spoken way, of course. He says, "No woman is going to get me hog-tied and branded." Still, even though he doesn't "hold with working for women," he agrees to work for Arly on the Topaz because there appear to be organized rustlers afoot, and the audience figures he's just the man to get to the bottom of the rustling and the murders. Moreover, Arly is an early Hollywood nod to women's lib, and apparently Rocklin just can't resist the challenge.

Meanwhile, we've got a whole corral full of suspicious characters and outright bad guys hanging around. There's Sheriff Jackson (Emory Parnell), obviously on somebody's payroll that he shouldn't be on; the Clews brothers, Bob and George (Paul Fix and Harry Woods), no-good ornery sidewinders; and Talo (Frank Puglia), a mysterious fellow quick with a knife, employed by Arly and always by her side.