The Plainsman (1936)

User Rating:

6.9/10   

Director:

Cecil B. DeMille

Writers:

Courtney Ryley Cooper (story)
Frank J. Wilstach (story)

Release Date:

16 November 1936 (USA)

Genre:

Biography | History | Romance | War | Western

Plot:

Wild Bill Hickok attempts to stop an Indian uprising that was started by white gun-runners.

Plot Keywords:

Rifle | Wild Bill Hickok | Buffalo | Repeating Rifle | Calamity Jane

Cast

Gary Cooper	...	Wild Bill Hickok
Jean Arthur	...	Calamity Jane
James Ellison	...	William "Buffalo Bill" Cody
Charles Bickford	...	John Lattimer
Helen Burgess	...	Louisa Cody
Porter Hall	...	Jack McCall
Paul Harvey	...	Yellow Hand
Victor Varconi	...	Painted Horse
John Miljan	...	Gen. George A. Custer
Frank McGlynn Sr.	...	Abraham Lincoln
Granville Bates	...	Van Ellyn
Frank Albertson	...	Young trooper
Purnell Pratt	...	Capt. Wood
Fred Kohler	...	Jake (teamster) (as Fred Kohler Sr.)
Pat Moriarity	...	Sgt. McGinnis (as Pat Moriarty)

Runtime:

113 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Noiseless Recording)

Certification:

UK:U | Norway:16 | Australia:PG | Argentina:13 | Finland:K-16 | USA:Approved (PCA #2597)

Filming Locations:

Birney, Montana, USA

Company:

Paramount Pictures

Trivia:

An excellent horseman from his youth in Montana, Gary Cooper did most of his own riding stunts, including the shot where he rode "hanging" between two horses.

Goofs:

Factual errors: According to the film, Custer's Last Stand and the establishment of the boom town of Deadwood occur shortly after the end of the Civil War in 1865. In actuality they happened 11 years later in 1876.

Quotes:

Calamity Jane: Tip your hat when you speak to a lady!
Wild Bill Hickok: I will... when I speak to a lady.

Movie Connections:

Featured in Cecil B. DeMille: American Epic (2004) (TV)

Soundtrack:

The Battle Cry of Freedom

Lincoln's advice

After the failure of "The Crusades" at the box office, Cecil B. DeMille stopped doing films about non-American history. His films for the next thirteen years were about our history from Jean Lafitte to World War II (Dr. Wassell). The first in order of production was this film, starring Gary Cooper as Wild Bill Hickok, with Jean Arthur as Calamity Jane. James Ellison was Buffalo Bill, John Miljan (not a villain as usual) was General George A. Custer, and Anthony Quinn was one of the Indians who fought at Little Big Horn. The villains were led by Charles Bickford (selling arms to the Indians) and Porter Hall as Jack McCall (who killed Wild Bill Hickok).

Basically the film takes up the history of the U.S. after the Civil War. Lincoln is shown at the start talking about what is the next step now that Lee has surrendered. Lincoln talks about the need to secure the west (more about this point later). Then he announces he has to go to the theater. That April 14th must have been very busy for Abe - in "Virginia City" he grants a pardon to Errol Flynn at the request of Miriam Hopkins on the same date.

Actually, while Lincoln was concerned about the West, his immediate thoughts on the last day of his Presidency were about reunifying the former Confederate states and it's citizens into the Union as soon as possible. It was Reconstruction that occupied his attention, not the west (except for the problems of Maximillian and his French controlled forces in Mexico against Juarez). But he had been involved in actual problems with the West. In 1862 he sent disgraced General John Pope, the loser at Second Manassas, to Minnesota to put down a serious Indian war by the Sioux (the subject of McKinley Kantor's novel, "Sprit Lake". Pope, incompetent against Lee and Jackson, turned out to be quite effective here, and the revolt was smashed.

However, with all Lincoln's actual attention to western problems, it is doubtful that he says (as Cooper repeats at least once), "The frontier should be secure." There is nothing to say he could not have said it, but it is hardly a profound pronouncement by a leading statesman. Like saying, Teddy Roosevelt said, "Eat a good breakfast every morning for your health." It is not a profound statement of policy. It is, at best, a statement of recognizable fact. Cooper turning it into a minor mantra, like Lincoln's version of the Monroe Doctrine, is ridiculous...typical of the way DeMille's scripts have really bad errors of common sense in them.

However, this is not a ruinous mistake. "The Plainsman" is an adventure film, and as such it has the full benefit of DeMille the film creator of spectacle. As such it is well worth watching. But not as a textbook on Lincoln's political ideas or his quotable legacy.