20 Mule Team (1940)

User Rating:

6.8/10   

Director:

Richard Thorpe

Writers:

Owen Atkinson (story)
Robert C. DuSoe (story)

Release Date:

3 May 1940 (USA)

Genre:

Western

Tagline:

Beery . . . a whip-totin' . . . gun-blazin' son of a coyote . . . from the orneriest end of the desert!

Plot:

It is 1892 in Death Valley and the yields from the Borax ore are getting so small that refining it is a losing proposition...

Plot Keywords:

Borax | Prospector | Fugitive | Mother Daughter Relationship | Mule

Cast

Wallace Beery	...	Skinner Bill Bragg, an Alias of Ambrose Murphy
Leo Carrillo	...	Piute Pete
Marjorie Rambeau	...	Josie Johnson
Anne Baxter	...	Joan Johnson
Douglas Fowley	...	Stag Roper
Noah Beery Jr.	...	Mitch
Berton Churchill	...	'Jackass' Brown
Arthur Hohl	...	Salters
Clem Bevans	...	Chuckawalla
Charles Halton	...	Henry Adams
Minor Watson	...	Marshal
Oscar O'Shea	...	Train Conductor
Lloyd Ingraham	...	Stockholder

Runtime:

84 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Sound System)

Certification:

Finland:K-16 | Sweden:15 | USA:Approved (PCA #6208)

Filming Locations:

Death Valley National Park, California, USA

Company:

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)

Trivia:

Anne Baxter's first movie.

Quotes:

Skinner Bill Bragg: Let's scratch some sand over him and keep the buzzards from picking him to pieces.
Piute Pete: Pretty soon wind comes some more, blow sand off and coyotes dig him up just the same.
Skinner Bill Bragg: Ain't you got no respect? It's the idea of the thing. Now get to scratching.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Northward, Ho! (1940)

Standard Beery Vehicle

This unremarkable film follows the exploits of borax miner Beery, and his Piute sidekick Carillo, in Death Valley as the 19th century winds down. The storyline is rather arbitrary--the promise of discovering a "motherlode" of borax could just as easily have been about gold or silver in another setting entirely--as Beery allies with oily Fowley (so memorable as the frustrated film director in "Singin' In The Rain") and later turns against him when his motives are made clearer. The perfunctory storyline could have been set in any-Western-town-USA and unfortunately does little to exploit the fascinating historical aspect of Death Valley, California. On the other hand, most of the exteriors were shot on location in Death Valley (in the winter, I hope) and the unique scenery is understandably spectacular in glorious black and white.

Baxter is lovely in her film debut, though her character's presence is little more than an excuse to dislike Fowley even more than we do. Beery is his usual blustery self so his fans will not be disappointed. But the film is, alas, just another cookie-cutter western that Hollywood churned out so frequently in the 30's and 40's; in other words, an inoffensive time-filler.