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Simply A Masterpiece

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

Most of the best movies were made in the 1940's, and that includes most of the best Westerns. 1946, a particularly good year for Hollywood pictures, saw the production of a number of spectacular, top-dollar "A" Westerns which have since become classics, such as My Darling Clementine, Duel In The Sun, and Canyon Passage. While the more modestly produced Badman's Territory starring rugged second-tier leading man Randolph Scott was not designed to compete with those aforementioned blockbusters, it was tremendously popular in its own day, spawned a sequel, attained a durable popularity, and is now a minor classic in its own right. It also set Scott on the trail to greater stardom and top box office drawing power as a Western only specialist.I first saw Badman's Territory in the edited-down re-release version when I was a kid in the early to mid-1950's. They didn't waste a good Western back in those days, and this picture was shown repeatedly as a Saturday matinée. The same 79-minute version started showing up on television also in the 'fifties. For this reason, I suppose, it has come to be thought of as a low-budget "B" movie for kiddies. The overly cute plot device of having a large number of notorious real-life old West outlaws anachronistically thrown together in the same place and time may bolster that impression. Actually Badman's Territory was more of a medium budget production with authentic, well turned out sets and costumes, with a large cast, and assigned to reliable medium budget director Tim Whelan. The original 98-minute running time tells you it was not a "B" picture in the context of a programmer. Though Scott was a second magnitude star, he was near the top of that class. He was billed ahead of John Wayne in the two pictures they made together in the 'forties.Though this was apparently his first Western, Whelan handles the project nimbly, getting one of Scott's best performances out of him. He likewise skillfully manages Gabby Hayes, as marshal Scott's outlaw likable sidekick. Gabby is as cantankerous and amusing as ever but not quite so over-the-top and distracting. Badman's territory is fast paced, precisely edited, colorfully scored by Roy Webb, handsomely filmed in beautiful, old nitrate black and white by Robert De Grasse with lots of starkly shadowed night scenes giving the picture a touch of the noir mood. The cinematography may be difficult to appreciate now. The Warner Archive DVD version is far from perfect with lots of "snow" spots showing up from time to time especially in the night scenes. But it is pretty good over all and as good as we are likely to get. Since the original prints and reprints were shown over and over again as already mentioned, its not likely a completely clean copy can be economically reconstructed. I can remember watching films just as beat up in the movie house as a kid, especially with those re-releases. By the time they made the rounds to the theater in the small town where I lived, they had been run through many projectors.Too much has been made of the James Boys, the Dalton gang, and Sam Bass all impossibly getting together in one picture. Such time and place compression to get historical personages together in a fictional setting is a time honored, if dubious, literary device going back as far as Homer's Iliad. But no one has even bothered to mention that the evil U. S. Marshal (Morgan Conway) persecuting Scott started out as a captain in the "Texas State Police" with the time being about 1890. Only a Texan up on his state history would know, but Texas has not had a state police since the late 1870's. But it was appropriate in the context of this movie to make the, brutal bloodthirsty marshal a member of that much despised organization, which was regarded as a gang of repressive bully boys enforcing scalawag Governor E. J. Davis' brutal dictatorship. His police force was disbanded as soon as he was voted out. But that's another story, and you'll have to watch another movie if interested -- try Wild Bill Elliot opus, The Fabulous Texan (1947). None of this is worth fretting about in any case. Only the hopelessly literal-minded care about a Western dotting its historical P's and Q's. This is a fiction, for entertainment purposes, and most of us when wanting to be entertained by a movie, do not let a small matter like a character (Jesse James in this case) actually being dead for ten years get in our way.And Badman's Territory does answer in the entertainment department. Scott and love interest Ann Richards seem to have good chemistry. This was when he was still young enough, his leading ladies didn't look like his granddaughters. Solid supporting cast includes, as well as Hayes, Ray Collins of Perry Mason fame, tall James Warren as Scott's wavering brother, and pretty Isabel Jewell as Belle Starr. Outstanding are movie and real-life bad boy Lawrence Tierney as a tough but gentlemanly Jesse James, the ubiquitous Nestor Paiva as Sam Bass, and Andrew Tombes as a boozy, absent-mined doctor.Intelligent script, engaging story, sharp, colorful dialog, fast moving with lots of action, though not overly violent, Badman's Territory is a top-notch Western in every way. Slick, smooth, satisfying entertainment from one of the platinum years of Old Hollywood's Golden Era.

Hollywood and History do not, as a rule, go well together.Once again a western movie is damaged by over-saturation of big-name outlaws -- real people but who lived and died very differently from the script's portrayal.Frankly, I watched with trepidation, but was soon more than placated by the very high quality of cast -- and, shucks, the presence of Randolph Scott alone will usually save any movie.Here he is assisted by Gabby Hayes, in an unusual but surprisingly moving characterization, and by an actress of whom I know nothing, Ann Richards, a very lovely woman, but whose allegedly English accent never did sound quite right. Turns out she is from Australia.The bad guys were played by some, not just veterans, but champions, people such as Lawrence Tierney, Tom Tyler, Steve Brodie, and Nestor Paiva.A character named Belle Starr just captivated, just stole each scene she was in, and looking later at the list of players I realize why: She was played by the great Isabel Jewell.Several more wonderful actors did not even get credit, and once more we have to pause and say a little prayer of thanks for IMDb.com. There are John Hamilton, Buddy Roosevelt, Kermit Maynard, Emory Parnell, who even has some lines, and Elmo Lincoln.The great and unheralded Bud Osborne has a pivotal role early in the film, but no credit.Despite the foolishness in using some of the outlaw names, the script has a lot of very good dialog, and it moves, with lots of characters having lots of action."Badman's Territory" is, finally, a very good movie.

Badman's Territory is a unique Randolph Scott film in that it has as its chief villain, a bloodthirsty United States Marshal in the person of Morgan Conway. Other than playing Dick Tracy this might be Mr. Conway's finest moment on screen.Randolph Scott is a local sheriff who's aiding Conway in pursuit of the James gang. When they get away, each blames the other, but Conway shoots Scott's brother James Warren who then is taken by the James gang to the Oklahoma panhandle, better known as the Badman's Territory. It's that because it is unorganized with no established law and therefore a haven for the famous outlaws of the west.They do flock there, everyone, the James gang, the Dalton gang, Belle Starr and Sam Bass. In real life none of these characters ever met, but this is Hollywood. Randy goes into the territory and finds all kinds of adventure and a little romance with Ann Richards.Conway's portrayal anticipates what Kirk Douglas did on screen many years later in his acclaimed western Posse. Conway's a bloodthirsty man who's got big ambitions for that strip of territory. Some of his actions indicate a man on horseback and in the post World War II era that would have struck a resonating tone with the movie going public.Of course it's outlaw Bruce Dern that brings Douglas down in Posse and in 1946 you had to have an honest sheriff in Randolph Scott do the deed. Still with Code restrictions in place, Badman's Territory is a good Randolph Scott western. And I'm sure made a few dollars for RKO back in the day.

Perhaps the most disjointed, incomprehensible major studio film I've ever seen. I defy anyone to accurately encapsulize the plot in a sentence or even ten. I just watched this film and have no idea what it is about. Now, I love Westerns. I am almost fanatic in my appreciation of Randolph Scott and George 'Gabby' Hayes, and both of them are terrific in this movie. But the script is word spaghetti. The leading lady, Ann Richards, speaks with a British accent for no discernible plot reason, and she gives a performance slightly less believable than might have been obtained from a brick. Outlaw gangs from all over the West and all over the 19th century are thrown together without much apparent purpose other than their name value. Nothing much of interest or accuracy happens with any of them. Nestor Paiva, quite at home playing Italian peasants or gangsters, is bizarrely cast as Texas outlaw Sam Bass, who in real life died at 27, fourteen years younger than Paiva. Chief Thundercloud portrays the Arapaho chief Tahlequah, despite the fact that Tahlequah is a Cherokee name. Geography is tossed about like a piñata; Scott takes a pleasant little day ride on horseback from one end of Oklahoma to the other and back, an actual distance of about 750 miles, and the geographical location is actually referred to officially as "Badman's Territory." As if. None of this would matter if the movie were any good. History, geography, and real-life logic have been tossed willy-nilly into the air quite entertainingly in many movies before and since. But with the entertaining ones, it was possible usually to follow the story. It's great fun to watch Scott, and Hayes gives a particularly enjoyable and offbeat performance. But that's all, brother.