Pittsburgh

My DVD is part of the Marlene Dietrich collection and this film is set against the backdrop of the coal and coking industry, the typical American story about starting with nothing and ending a tycoon.

But, of course, for business partners John Wayne - who bulldozes his way through and over anybody and everything and Randolph Scott, who is socially conscience the way to the top is interspersed with the, as always, beguiling Marlene Dietrich.

The production values are good, directed by Lewis Sellar and there's some smart dialogue - 'he's so crooked, he could hide behind a corkscrew' and to Dietrich 'a Christmas tree is dead until it's all lit up' but the story fairly rattles along that each piece and chapter are dealt as briefly and bluntly as Wayne's character (he's called Pittsburgh, or 'Pitt', as well as the story set in the city of the same name) and it's frankly hard to keep up.

This bamboozles any prospective romances to blossom and there's an awful lot of technical talk about unflattering by-products from coal - slag, sulphur, clinker - making this a movie that's not for those looking for a lot of Dietrich or romance. She is good, when she is seen, but Pittsburgh is more a sparring duet between Randolph Scott and John Wayne.

So 6/10; not a bad film but not a particularly good one, either.