American Empire (1942) User Reviews

Ambitious Epic of Post Civil War Texas

[bsmith5552 · 7/10 · 20 July 2003]

"American Empire" is another of a series of modestly budgeted features produced by Harry "Pop" Sherman, who also was responsible for the highly successful Hopalong Cassidy series. This one deals with the emergeance of the cattle ranches in Texas in the years following the Civil War.

Two soldiers of fortune, Dan Taylor (Richard Dix) and Pax Bryce (Preston Foster) are ruuning a freight business from their riverboat. One day they meet up with the unscrupulous Dominique Beauchard (Leo Carillo) who is driving cattle to his home state of Louisiana. The boys agree to transport the cattle to their destination for a set fee. When Beauchard fails to pay up they keep the cattle and decide to go into the cattle ranching business.

Into the mix comes Taylor's sister Abby (Frances Gifford) with whom Bryce falls in love and marries. They soon have a son Pax Jr. (Merrill Rodin) and Pax Sr. becomes more and more ambitious as time goes on, much to the chagrin of his partner Dan. He has angered the smaller ranchers by refusing them permission to drive their cattle across his land. The ranchers decide to stampede the cattle through but Pax Jr. is killed in the stampede.

Bryce becomes distraught and decides to erect barb wire fences around the ranch which forces Dan to dissolve their partnership. All this is resolved at the end when all realize that progress must prevail over the ambitions of one man.

Also in the cast are Guinn "Big Boy" Williams and Cliff Edwards as the comic relief, Jack LaRue and Chris-Pin Martin as Carillo's henchmen, and veterans William Farnum and Hal Taliaferro in other roles.

Foster is really the star of the movie despite being billed third. He delivers a solid performance. Dix, who was top billed, is really only a supporting player. Gifford looks lovely as the heroine. The action is well staged and there's one dandy of a gunfight at the climax of the film.

A good western.

Cowboys Versus Cajuns

[FightingWesterner · 6/10 · 22 March 2010]

An encounter with Frenchman Leo Carillo gives riverboat operators Richard Dix and Preston Foster the idea to start a ranch by buying property already inhabited by wild cattle, that had multiplied on the un-worked land during the Civil War. Things go well for awhile, until Carillo shows up to take what he believes is owed him, leading to misunderstandings with the neighbors that leave Foster acting more and more tyrannical.

I'll give the filmmakers credit for managing to squeeze an epic tale into eighty-one minutes and nine seconds, on a low budget, but the ambitious, episodic script is just too loose for it's own good. The producers should have spent some extra money to develop it more.

Still, it's an entertaining enough time-filler, thanks to the colorful performance by Carillo, better known for his role on TV's "The Cisco Kid" and a spectacular, action-filled final act.

Foster's pretty good at playing bitter SOB's and Dix is a likable actor, as is Guinn "Big Boy" Williams, who plays an ex-whaler/cowboy. They're worth watching too.

A Pretty Decent Low Budget Western

[sddavis63 · 6/10 · 9 August 2008]

A pretty decent movie about life on the Texas-Louisiana border in the years immediately following the US Civil War. Richard Dix and Preston Foster play Dan Taylor and Paxton Bryce. As the movie opens, they're former Confederate blockade runners running a river boat carrying freight up and down the Sabine River. They run into Dominique Beauchard (Leo Carillo), an unscrupulous Louisiana cattle rancher who rounds up loose cattle in chaotic post-war Texas and runs them across the river to Louisiana. Taylor and Bryce realize the potential of cattle ranching and so give up their riverboat and start buying up land in Texas. This becomes the start of their "American Empire."

Foster is really the key to the movie. Dix may receive top billing, but all he does is play off Foster. Foster's Bryce is the character who changes and grows. He has his big dream, gets married to Bryce's sister (Frances Gifford) and they have a son (Merrill Rodin) and heir to the empire. But along the way Bryce changes. Building the empire becomes all that counts. He clashes with the other ranchers in the area by refusing to let them run their cattle over his land, and he blocks progress that would have benefited them all by refusing permission for a railway right of way across his land. The end result is ongoing conflict between Foster and the ranchers, and even between Foster and Taylor, who doesn't like Bryce's way of doing business. Eventually, even his family life falls apart because of his greed. In the midst of it all Beauchard doesn't disappear but remains a thorn in Bryce's side. Providing a few chuckles throughout are the exchanges between Sailaway (Guinn Williams) and Runty (Cliff Edwards), who work for Taylor and Bryce on both the riverboat and at the ranch.

All this leads up to a pretty good gunfight at the end (which is really the only extensive gunfight in the movie) and, of course, to Bryce's eventual redemption and reconciliation with those he's pushed away. It all works pretty well. It's obviously a lower budget type of movie and there's nothing fancy about it, but it's good fun and pretty quick. 6/10

An Entertaining Western

[Snow Leopard · 18 December 2002]

Good action and an interesting story make this Western good entertainment despite a few minor flaws. The characters aren't very deep, but they're interesting, and the pace moves along very nicely as it builds up the tension and leads up to a good and often exciting climactic sequence. Richard Dix helps a lot with a pretty good performance as the key character.

The story sets up a situation with a lot of possibilities. On the one hand is the hard-headed Bryce, head of the big cattle empire. Then there are the rest of the ranchers, whom Bryce has alienated and angered by his aggressive policies. Finally there is the wild card, the crafty rustler Beauchard, out only for himself. In the middle of all the conflicts is Dix's character Dan Taylor, trying to hold things together. As the story develops from there, Dix generally underplays to good effect (making a nice contrast with, for example, his better known but rather overblown performance in "Cimarron"), and lets the situation speak for itself when it should. Only some shallow characterizations and some ineffective comic relief hold it back a little at times. Otherwise, it gets pretty good mileage out of its potential, and has most of the things you could ask for in a Western.

That's Texan Empire!

[boblipton · 6/10 · 14 July 2019]

Richard Dix and Preston Foster give up their Mississippi paddlewheeler to become co-owners of the largest ranch in Texas, with Dix's sister, Frances Gifford, marrying Foster. Pressures ensue. Foster wants to forbid other ranchers from crossing their immense territory, and won't grant rights for the railroad to cross their ranch, while Dix wants to leave room for the little guy. Meanwhile, Cajun Leo Carrillo raids their cattle to become the largest rancher in Louisiana.

There are some anachronisms in this movie, like entire herds being whitefaced Hereford; the breed was only being introduced into Texas when the latter portions of this movie take place. Nonetheless, it is an exciting movie, with three battle scenes. Rough humor is provided by 'Big Boy' Williams and Cliff Edwards as two of their crew who move from shipboard life to ranch life without much trouble. Edwards also sings a couple of songs.

Worth watching if you love westerns

[planktonrules · 6/10 · 15 February 2010]

This B-western sure has a lot of familiar faces--Richard Dix, Preston Foster, Robert Barat, Cliff Edwards, Guinn "Big Boy" Williams, Leo Carrillo and Jack LaRue. While none of these names were exactly big names at the time, this did give the film a bit better cast than you'd usually expect with such a film.

Edwards, Williams and Dix run a riverboat along the Louisiana-Texas border just after the Civil War. They get an idea from Leo Carrillo to go into the cattle business--as they see that there is a huge need up north for beef. During the first year, the men (along with Dix's sister) manage to create a prosperous cattle ranch--but into their seemingly charmed life comes Carrillo and his bandit friends to rob them blind. As Carrillo's character reasons, as he gave them the idea for the ranch, the cattle are just as much his!! He disappears from the film for a while...only to appear again much later.

Time suddenly passes as you see the years flying past the screen. Dix's daughter has married Foster and they have a child. Unfortunately, instead of Foster relaxing and enjoying his success, he acts as if it's him against everyone--including the railroads! Will he have a change of heart or will he lose everything he loves in the process? See it for yourself to find out what happens next.

Some of this film is quite formulaic. The idea of a cattle baron becoming greedy and trying to squeeze out the competition certainly is not new--nor is the notion of two friends becoming estranged in the process. The climax is amazingly good--and very violent! Generally, the acting is very good, but the casting of Carrillo is odd, as he's supposed to be a Cajun--a FRENCH-speaking Cajun. With his heavy Spanish accent, this seemed like an odd choice for the actor to play this role. As for the plot, it's very familiar but entertaining. Not great but worth seeing if you like westerns.

Empire On the Sabine

[bkoganbing · 4/10 · 27 August 2005]

I'm sure that the folks on the Texas/Louisiana border must have had a a good laugh or two when Paramount's B picture unit inflicted this one on the war time public. Very simply the area along the Sabine River where the film opens is cotton country just like the rest of the Deep South or at least the Deep South was post Civl War. No big cattle empires there, they're much farther west in Texas, farther than Richard Dix and Preston Foster could ride to set up their empire.

The film begins with the two of them partners in a riverboat and when Leo Carrillo tries a theft of their services by not paying them for hauling his cattle, they keep the cattle. And that's the beginning of the big Ponderosa like ranch they start.

Along the way Foster marries Dix's sister played by Frances Gifford and feuds with his much smaller neighbors. They also have some further run ins with Leo Carrillo.

Anyway, us easterners who like westerns usually don't bother with geographical trifles and it's still a good western from the production mill of Harry Sherman who produced all those Hopalong Cassidy westerns for Paramount. The climax is a blazing, and I mean that literally, gun battle that should have maybe been used on an A production.

But I wouldn't have any but western fans look at it.

A last reel worth waiting for!

[JohnHowardReid · 7/10 · 19 October 2013]

For what remained of his lengthy screen career, Richard Dix was always overshadowed by his work in Cimarron (1931). As a further example of this fact, this 13 December 1942 release, produced by Harry "Pop" Sherman, can be seen as a later attempt to cash in on Dix's self-sustaining image. American Empire was a surprisingly elaborate production by Pop's standards, and the New York Times reviewer astutely noted that Sherman "has climaxed an otherwise well-behaved drama with a reel that explodes in all directions." (In fact, the rest of the drama was far too sedate, far too well-behaved and far too over-primed with dull "additional dialogue" in my opinion).

Anyway, after appearing as the Indian hero of The Vanishing American (1925), Dix had quite a career in the western film genre. He was Joaquim Murietta in The Gay Defender (1928) and an Indian again in Redskin (1929). After the award-winning Cimarron, resolute Richard performed similar chores in The Conquerors (1932). RKO then starred Dix as Pecos Smith in Zane Grey's West of the Pecos (1934), as a marshal in The Arizonian, and as a miner in Yellow Dust (1936). Dix then turned to comedy as a washed-up cowboy star in Columbia's It Happened in Hollywood (1936). However, Dix returned to his established form in Republic's expansive Man of Conquest (1939), playing the greatly admired Texas hero, Sam Houston. Moving on into the forties, Dix was an Oklahoma Territory marshal in Cherokee Strip (Paramount, 1940), a rancher in The Roundup (Paramount, 1941), and received special billing as Wild Bill Hickok in Badlands of Dakota (Universal, 1941). Next up, he impersonated Wyatt Earp in Tombstone, the Town Too Tough to Die (Paramount, 1942), became a gunfighter in Buckskin Frontier (United Artists), and followed up as a marshal in his final western, The Kansan (United Artists, 1943).

Although first-billed in American Empire (and given more than his share of boring additional dialogue), Dix actually has the second lead. He even disappears from the plot for a spell halfway through and then re-appears to save the day at the elaborately staged, thrill-a-second climax. Although billed third, it's the boring Preston Foster who takes the reins in Dix's absence. As for Leo Carillo, he enacts his role with his usual strenuously unfunny "comic" accent even though he plays the villain. In real life, Carillo spoke in the same, quietly measured tones as Ronald Reagan. He was in fact an extremely rich man. Acting was his hobby.

You'll notice I've not said anything about Frances Gifford, and that's because there's really nothing you can say about her. She's competent, but makes little impression. Alas, Cliff Edwards and "Big Boy" Williams try to take up the slack. They're given plenty of dull dialogue to cut their teeth on, but neither of them are equal to the task of making what issues from their mouths sound the least bit interesting.

Fortunately, however, as noted above, that last reel is a whopper full of great stunts and other action and well worth waiting for!

"From now on, cows is only steaks to me."

[classicsoncall · 6/10 · 23 September 2006]

This turned out to be a fairly entertaining Western, as well as an interesting analysis of a once forward thinking individual whose aging conservatism turns rigid. Paxton Bryce (Preston Foster) winds up coming full circle by the film's blazing finale, having had to endure the alienation of those closest to him. You can figure out fairly early how this one's going to go even though the happy ending is tempered by the loss of Bryce's young son.

Richard Dix is top billed as Bryce's long time friend and business partner Dan Taylor. Taylor's sister happens on the scene to provide the romantic interest as Bryce's future wife Abby (Frances Gifford). The film doesn't spend too much time developing that relationship, but that's not the central focus. The story has more to do with the regular expansion of the partners' land holdings and cattle business, with Leo Carrillo providing the foil as a hustling cattle thief. Except for the fact that he's the villain of the piece, he plays it pretty much the way he would as the Cisco Kid's sidekick Pancho in the 1950's TV series. He may not mangle as much of the English language here, but his temperament and mannerisms make it difficult to see him as the bad guy he's intended to be.

Guinn Williams delivers in the comic relief role as 'Sailaway', a name derived from his free wheeling riverboat days with Bryce and Taylor. I've always enjoyed his roles in movies starring Roy Rogers, John Wayne and Errol Flynn, though here he's not in the usual sidekick role. Instead, he's a loyal employee of the two river men turned ranchers, who gets his kicks by verbally sparring with his buddy Runty (Cliff Edwards). Sailaway helps make the save near the end of the story when he gets wind of Dominique Beauchard's (Carrillo) plans to raid the town of Riverford. By that time, the opposition of the local ranchers to Bryce's restriction of his range land is about to get ugly, and becomes the turning point in bringing Bryce back to his senses.

Though the open range theme had been done time and time again in 'B' Westerns of the Forties and Fifties, the formula still works well here. It reaches a rather dramatic but sad climax when Bryce's seven year old son dies from injuries suffered in a cattle stampede trying to enforce his father's rigid rules. I don't believe I've ever seen an element as harsh in service to a film of the era before. It works, but one can't help feeling that maybe they could have come to a happy ending without the loss of Pax Jr.

A nice change of pace from the typical western heroes.

[mark.waltz · 8/10 · 10 September 2020]

No John Wayne, no Henry Fonda, no Gary Cooper, just a group of dependable actors all giving well rounded characterizations in essentially is a high budget B western (or perhaps a low budget A) that has more intimacy because John Ford, Howard Hawks and Cecil B. DeMille were not involved. No enormous crowds of extras, no Technicolor and no unnecessary saloon girls. Just history plain and simple.

Three wannabee cattle barons (Richard Dix, Preston Foster and Leo Carrillo) join forces together to start cattle ranches in Texas after the end of the Civil War. But different circumstances leads each of them to go their own way and Foster, the most successful of the three, finds himself at the mercy of other Texans who are furious when he decides to put barbed wire up to keep the railroad from getting through his property. This leads to violence, and turns Carrillo into an enemy.

Probably the best western film of 1942, "American Empire" features a very strong performance by Foster, 3rd billed, but where the focus lies. He falls in love with the pretty Frances Gifford who helps him begin a dynasty, and we begin to see a mostly fictional view of how Texas got started and eventually would become the biggest state on the mainland and the one with the most room for cattle to graze. Gwen Williams and Cliff Edwards provide the comedy but are not at all distracting from the main plot, and Carrillo is charming and over-the-top even when plotting. The photography, editing and music are all superb, and the picture flows by at a nice pace and does not overstay its welcome. It's definitely epic light, but that makes it approachable on an easy level to enjoy for a strong story.

"Everymen"

[drystyx · 6/10 · 20 July 2011]

This is the old time basic Western, and one interesting aspect about it is how it is one of the "models" for most later TV series.

Perhaps the best way to illustrate this is by the star billing. Dix and Carillo are top billed, yet it is obvious from the start that Preston Foster and Frances Gifford are the lead romantic interests.

Romantic leads were not always the standard. Top billing in "THEM!" went to the chief characters of Gwynn and Whitmore as the eccentric show stealing scientist and the policeman who was followed throughout the story. In "THE RAVEN" the two young romantic lovers play second fiddle to three with star billing in Karloff, Price, and Lorre.

So it's not new. What is important is that the character played by Dix is the one who is the strong, solid, stable influence. This is the character who would be the mainstay of just about every TV Western series to follow, and most other TV shows. He was Cheyenne, Bronco, Matt Dillon, Ben and Adam Cartwright.

Foster was the mistake prone fellow who lacked the solid fundamentals. He learns some bitter lessons the hard way. Unfortunately, as in real life, it is other people who pay for them. In this case, his first born son does.

The villainy of the Mexicans is on the racist side. One interesting bit is that when the two good guys meet up with the villain Carillo, it is their own man who is at fault for the troubles, but they are men of experience and savvy, and recognize Carillo for what he is.

Frances makes a very nice entrance, and she is very stunning. She appeals to both the male libido and the female intellect.

Dix, though seemingly shadowed in the background, is no more shadowed than Bronco or Ben Cartwright were in their endeavors. They were the main character, because they were not just one man, but representative of a lot of men who would try to make things work. They weren't "Everyman". They were "Everymen".

'the river, always so peaceful and quiet'

[Cristi_Ciopron · 6/10 · 23 June 2010]

There are buffs who signal American EMPIRE as an unusual and likable western; they are right about a degree of relative originality. Nicely paced, this flick is pretty well made. The plot isn't very interesting, and it's not an exciting and lively movie; but it looks better than the regular westerns of those times. I'm kind of a fan of this movie. As a genre, American EMPIRE isn't as a matter of fact a western, but a melodrama; a ranch melodrama.

Gracelessly played by the two aging male leads (the distinguished and oldie Preston Foster and Richard Dix), this charming light ancient comedy manages, for a little while, before it quickly turns into romance, some kind of a screwball western—or western screwball; which would of been interesting to follow on, but, as I said, they traded screwball for romance. The action begins in the aftermath of the civil war. Two boatmen, Bryce and Taylor, turn into ranch-men. They sailed, they ride, now they have a cattle ranch. A sister for one of them means a lover for the other.

Then we are, with our Texans, in 1874. Bryce (played by Preston Foster), now a family man and a powerful owner of cattle, has become a heartless guy; in his individualism, he even opposes progress as represented by the railroad, he believes only in the sharpest concurrency, he concedes nothing. Even his relatives resent him.

Bryce's wife is played by the hot Frances Gifford, some girl ….

What is the American EMPIRE? Bryce's ranch.

The scene of the firewall is awesome.

The folks depicted in these naive ancient westerns are usually _asexualized, generous and decent, conventionally horny sometimes.

The title of Cristian Ciopron's review should not mislead—the characters leave the river—for cattle, love and family—quite early in the movie.

Building A Cattle Empire

[StrictlyConfidential · 6/10 · 5 November 2021]

"American Empire" was originally released back in 1942.

Anyway - As the story goes - Dan Taylor and Pax Bryce are two entrepreneurs who run a freight company from a riverboat. When they encounter the duplicitous Dominique Beauchard (who is driving a herd of cattle to Louisiana), they offer to take his cattle to their destination for a fee. When Beauchard reneges on his deal, they change direction and go into the cattle ranching business.