Rex Beach's Western tale was much filmed over the years including twice during the Silent era, and an early Talkie version co-starring Gary Cooper; my brother had watched the 1955 color remake, which was O.K. but uninspired. This earlier adaptation, however, stands as a prime example of the genre from the more innocent pre-war era; in fact, starting from the year after with William A. Wellman's THE OX-BOX INCIDENT (1943), to be exact the Western achieved sudden maturity that would lead to any number of masterworks in various veins (noir, psychological, elegiac, revisionist) till it died out towards the late 1970s.
Anyway, this is a quite splendid film with all three stars (Marlene Dietrich, Randolph Scott and John Wayne) in good form; incidentally, all of them had just come from impressive individual work in the genre DESTRY RIDES AGAIN (1939), Fritz Lang's WESTERN UNION (1941), and STAGECOACH (1939) respectively. Having preceded the film by the trio's subsequent (though lesser) teaming, PITTSBURGH (1942), it was interesting to see Wayne and Scott take turns playing the unsympathetic role (in the case of the latter here, he emerges to be an out-and-out villain if a charming one, and to which he would return for his swan-song two decades later in Sam Peckinpah's RIDE THE HIGH COUNTRY [1962]). Incidentally, in both THE SPOILERS and PITTSBURGH, Scott is clearly depicted as being interested in Dietrich but she seems to prefer Wayne (maybe because she did one other title with the latter, SEVEN SINNERS [1940], which is to follow).
The supporting cast is also quite strong: Richard Barthelmess and Harry Carey (both of whom had been stars in the Silent era and had since settled in character roles) appear as Dietrich and Wayne's sidekicks respectively the former is shady and the latter hot-headed, and each prefers to settle arguments with a weapon (Barthelmess a flick-knife and Carey the shotgun he calls "Betsy"). Scott's gang of crooked associates is made up of Charles Halton, Samuel S. Hinds and, the latter's niece, Margaret Lindsay (who was intended to seduce Wayne for the benefit of their scheme, but ends up falling for him the actress had been a leading lady of Warner Bros. pictures during the previous decade, but her poignant Other Woman role here is surprisingly well-written).
The compelling narrative extends to many an exciting (and, often, action-oriented) development trial, bank robbery, jailbreak, train wreck, various instances where law officers face off or shoot it out with miners, and culminating in the famously brutal lengthy fistfight between the two male stars (though this is somewhat spoiled {sic} by the obvious use of doubles in longshots).
Anyway, this is a quite splendid film with all three stars (Marlene Dietrich, Randolph Scott and John Wayne) in good form; incidentally, all of them had just come from impressive individual work in the genre DESTRY RIDES AGAIN (1939), Fritz Lang's WESTERN UNION (1941), and STAGECOACH (1939) respectively. Having preceded the film by the trio's subsequent (though lesser) teaming, PITTSBURGH (1942), it was interesting to see Wayne and Scott take turns playing the unsympathetic role (in the case of the latter here, he emerges to be an out-and-out villain if a charming one, and to which he would return for his swan-song two decades later in Sam Peckinpah's RIDE THE HIGH COUNTRY [1962]). Incidentally, in both THE SPOILERS and PITTSBURGH, Scott is clearly depicted as being interested in Dietrich but she seems to prefer Wayne (maybe because she did one other title with the latter, SEVEN SINNERS [1940], which is to follow).
The supporting cast is also quite strong: Richard Barthelmess and Harry Carey (both of whom had been stars in the Silent era and had since settled in character roles) appear as Dietrich and Wayne's sidekicks respectively the former is shady and the latter hot-headed, and each prefers to settle arguments with a weapon (Barthelmess a flick-knife and Carey the shotgun he calls "Betsy"). Scott's gang of crooked associates is made up of Charles Halton, Samuel S. Hinds and, the latter's niece, Margaret Lindsay (who was intended to seduce Wayne for the benefit of their scheme, but ends up falling for him the actress had been a leading lady of Warner Bros. pictures during the previous decade, but her poignant Other Woman role here is surprisingly well-written).
The compelling narrative extends to many an exciting (and, often, action-oriented) development trial, bank robbery, jailbreak, train wreck, various instances where law officers face off or shoot it out with miners, and culminating in the famously brutal lengthy fistfight between the two male stars (though this is somewhat spoiled {sic} by the obvious use of doubles in longshots).