"Cecil B. DeMille Much against his will Was persuaded to leave Moses Out of the Wars of the Roses".
Unlike some clerihews, that one encapsulates an essential truth about its subject. Most of DeMille's films were set in some period of history, but he was not a stickler for historical accuracy and never let inconvenient facts get in the way of a good story.
DeMille is best remembered today for grand epics like "The Ten Commandments", but he also made a number of Westerns, of which "The Plainsman" is one. He saw the Old West as one more canvas on which he could paint an epic tale of heroism and adventure, and felt no more need for accuracy when dealing with American history than when dealing with the ancient world. The film is set between the end of the American Civil War and Custer's Last Stand, in reality a period of eleven years but here seeming like only a few weeks or months. The main characters are Wild Bill Hickok, Calamity Jane, Buffalo Bill Cody, and General Custer, although the account of their lives is highly fictionalised. I am only surprised that DeMille did not try and introduce Jesse James, Wyatt Earp, Billy the Kid and Annie Oakley into the mix, thereby getting all the main Western heroes into the same film. Knowing him he could probably have got Hopalong Cassidy and the Lone Ranger in there as well.
The main villain is a gun-runner named Lattimer who is selling rifles to the Cheyenne Indians. He is acting as agent for a group of unscrupulous weapon manufacturers whose business has taken a hit with the end of the Civil War and who view the Indians not as enemies of the United States but as potential new customers. The film tells the story of how our four heroes frustrate this dastardly plot and ensure that the rifles find their way to the Cavalry. There is also a subplot about the romance between Hickok and Calamity.
As that synopsis might suggest, this is not one of those revisionist Westerns which try to tell the story of the West from a viewpoint sympathetic to the Indians, or even one which tries to tell it from a viewpoint even-handed between Indians and whites. The concept of the "revisionist Western" did not really exist in 1936. Modern audiences might have a certain sneaking sympathy with Lattimer whose endeavours, however mercenary his motives, do at least have the effect of partially levelling an otherwise very uneven playing-field between Indians and whites. In the thirties, however, it was still "white man good, red man bloodthirsty savage". Only in one scene, when the Cheyenne chieftain Yellow Hand is allowed to state his point of view, is it suggested that the Indian Wars might have had more to do with white greed than with red bloodlust.
Despite its dodgy political stance, "The Plainsman" is by no means a bad film. During a decade when many directors turned to intimate, small- scale movies, DeMille remained true to the sort of large-scale action films with which he made his name in the silent era. "The Plainsman" is not quite as spectacular as some Westerns from the fifties and sixties, but it has some good action sequences, especially the Indian attack on the ammunition train and the subsequent siege. Gary Cooper as Hickok makes a charismatic hero- he has a rather larger role than James Ellison as Cody or John Miljan as Custer- and Jean Arthur as Calamity is better than her successors in the same role, Jane Russell in "The Paleface" (too glamorous) and Doris Day in "Calamity Jane" (so obviously unsuitable that I can only assume this was deliberate miscasting for comic effect). Anthony Quinn (DeMille's son-in-law) has small early role as an Indian.
Today we lovers of the Western are lucky in that we have available to us so many films by the masters of the genre such as John Ford, John Huston, George Stevens, Anthony Mann, William Wyler and Clint Eastwood. People in 1936 were not so lucky. Certainly, "poverty row" Westerns were ten-a-penny in the thirties, but few of these were of any quality, even when they featured stars of the future like John Wayne. Even the likes of "Destry Rides Again", "Dodge City" and "Stagecoach" still lay a couple of years in the future. A major-league Western by a major-league director like DeMille was therefore something of a novelty at the time. "The Plainsman" is not in the same league as the greatest works of the directors mentioned above, but it is a very decent Western for the mid- thirties. 7/10
Some goofs. In a scene set in the 1860s there is a reference to tumbleweed. Although these plants have come to be regarded as iconic symbols of the West, they are actually native to Asia and were not introduced to North America until after the events depicted in this film. ("The Plainsman", however, is far from the only film to make this mistake). Calamity Jane pronounces her surname, Canary, as though it were the name of the bird; in reality it was pronounced, and sometimes spelt, "Cannary", with the stress on the first syllable.
Unlike some clerihews, that one encapsulates an essential truth about its subject. Most of DeMille's films were set in some period of history, but he was not a stickler for historical accuracy and never let inconvenient facts get in the way of a good story.
DeMille is best remembered today for grand epics like "The Ten Commandments", but he also made a number of Westerns, of which "The Plainsman" is one. He saw the Old West as one more canvas on which he could paint an epic tale of heroism and adventure, and felt no more need for accuracy when dealing with American history than when dealing with the ancient world. The film is set between the end of the American Civil War and Custer's Last Stand, in reality a period of eleven years but here seeming like only a few weeks or months. The main characters are Wild Bill Hickok, Calamity Jane, Buffalo Bill Cody, and General Custer, although the account of their lives is highly fictionalised. I am only surprised that DeMille did not try and introduce Jesse James, Wyatt Earp, Billy the Kid and Annie Oakley into the mix, thereby getting all the main Western heroes into the same film. Knowing him he could probably have got Hopalong Cassidy and the Lone Ranger in there as well.
The main villain is a gun-runner named Lattimer who is selling rifles to the Cheyenne Indians. He is acting as agent for a group of unscrupulous weapon manufacturers whose business has taken a hit with the end of the Civil War and who view the Indians not as enemies of the United States but as potential new customers. The film tells the story of how our four heroes frustrate this dastardly plot and ensure that the rifles find their way to the Cavalry. There is also a subplot about the romance between Hickok and Calamity.
As that synopsis might suggest, this is not one of those revisionist Westerns which try to tell the story of the West from a viewpoint sympathetic to the Indians, or even one which tries to tell it from a viewpoint even-handed between Indians and whites. The concept of the "revisionist Western" did not really exist in 1936. Modern audiences might have a certain sneaking sympathy with Lattimer whose endeavours, however mercenary his motives, do at least have the effect of partially levelling an otherwise very uneven playing-field between Indians and whites. In the thirties, however, it was still "white man good, red man bloodthirsty savage". Only in one scene, when the Cheyenne chieftain Yellow Hand is allowed to state his point of view, is it suggested that the Indian Wars might have had more to do with white greed than with red bloodlust.
Despite its dodgy political stance, "The Plainsman" is by no means a bad film. During a decade when many directors turned to intimate, small- scale movies, DeMille remained true to the sort of large-scale action films with which he made his name in the silent era. "The Plainsman" is not quite as spectacular as some Westerns from the fifties and sixties, but it has some good action sequences, especially the Indian attack on the ammunition train and the subsequent siege. Gary Cooper as Hickok makes a charismatic hero- he has a rather larger role than James Ellison as Cody or John Miljan as Custer- and Jean Arthur as Calamity is better than her successors in the same role, Jane Russell in "The Paleface" (too glamorous) and Doris Day in "Calamity Jane" (so obviously unsuitable that I can only assume this was deliberate miscasting for comic effect). Anthony Quinn (DeMille's son-in-law) has small early role as an Indian.
Today we lovers of the Western are lucky in that we have available to us so many films by the masters of the genre such as John Ford, John Huston, George Stevens, Anthony Mann, William Wyler and Clint Eastwood. People in 1936 were not so lucky. Certainly, "poverty row" Westerns were ten-a-penny in the thirties, but few of these were of any quality, even when they featured stars of the future like John Wayne. Even the likes of "Destry Rides Again", "Dodge City" and "Stagecoach" still lay a couple of years in the future. A major-league Western by a major-league director like DeMille was therefore something of a novelty at the time. "The Plainsman" is not in the same league as the greatest works of the directors mentioned above, but it is a very decent Western for the mid- thirties. 7/10
Some goofs. In a scene set in the 1860s there is a reference to tumbleweed. Although these plants have come to be regarded as iconic symbols of the West, they are actually native to Asia and were not introduced to North America until after the events depicted in this film. ("The Plainsman", however, is far from the only film to make this mistake). Calamity Jane pronounces her surname, Canary, as though it were the name of the bird; in reality it was pronounced, and sometimes spelt, "Cannary", with the stress on the first syllable.