Silver Queen

Silver Queen casts sweet young Priscilla Lane in a role that probably should have been done by someone like Barbara Stanwyck. She plays a New York society girl who has to use her gambling wiles to pay back a debt that father Eugene Palette incurred before he died. What was an avocation to her becomes a profession.

The debt that Palette incurred is as a result of a high stakes poker game where he lost the root of the family fortune, a Nevada silver mine. Palette lost it to George Brent a professional gambler, but a cavalier if there ever was one. He turns the deed of the mine over to society swell Bruce Cabot who has been engaged to Lane, perennially it would seem.

But Cabot is one society rat who keeps the mine for himself. In the end the showdown comes between Brent and Cabot. Guess who wins?

Though Silver Queen is a western as categorized, very little time is spent on the lone prairie, most of the film takes place in New York and San Francisco of the 1870s. That showdown climax is abrupt and rather clumsily staged.

But Silver Queen's biggest problem is Priscilla Lane. Barbara Stanwyck who played tough and determined women could have carried this part off with a fraction of her talent. Sweet girl next door Priscilla Lane just was not convincing in the part.

The film received Oscar nominations for Musical Scoring and black and white Art Direction. But that only serves to inflate an essentially B picture.

Silver Queen stars Priscilla Lane as Coralie Adams, a young woman from a wealthy family whose father (Eugene Palette) loses it all -- a silver man -- in a high stakes poker game played with a professional gambler, James Kincaid (George Brent). Kincaid, learning that Gerald Forsythe is engaged to Coralie, gives the deed for the mine to him. Cabot is a bad lot, despite the society trimmings, and just keeps the mine for himself.

An real card shark, Coralie gambles in order to pay her father's debts.

The film takes place in New York and San Francisco in the 1870s.

This just isn't much of a movie. Priscilla Lane is miscast. She was a lovely woman and had a very sweet, vivacious quality, but the role called for someone a little tougher. The original star was to be Ellen Drew. The production company borrowed Brent, Cabot, and Lane from Warners. They should have borrowed perhaps Ida Lupino.

Not sure if it was intended to be a B movie, though it comes off like one.

Average drama was Priscilla's only western. She was never a great actress, not to say she wasn't a good one-she was, but was never given a role that would challenge her. Of course being a Warners girl that would have been tough anyway with Bette Davis and Ida Lupino usually getting the roles that required heavy lifting. She was however a warm presence in all her films providing a pleasant center to her pictures as she does here.

The picture has a strong supporting cast with Eugene Palette and Guinn Williams livening up the movie during their scenes and Bruce Cabot playing his typical conscienceless worm. The weak link, wasn't he always, is George Brent. Providing his usual stiff, bland performance he adds nothing to the film.

The other weakness is the script, most of the action happens with no real sense of conflict. The running time is short so perhaps there was originally more exposition. As it stands now most of the story moves along with no real explanation or sense of struggle for the characters.

The film is handsome and was Oscar nominated for it's sets which at the time included costumes since the categories had yet to be split. It certainly has a rich look and Priscilla and the other women are decked out in sumptuous gowns and head-wear and everything is played out on expensive looking ornate sets. It's nomination for musical scoring is a bit more of a surprise since there is nothing really outstanding about it.

A routine film but if you are a fan of any of the stars an enjoyably brisk 80 minutes.

Harry "Pop" Sherman spent most of his career producing superior B westerns and was best known for creating and running for several years the Hopalong Cassidy franchise. With this movie he made a bid for the big time and was rewarded with a couple of Oscar nominations, but the total effect, looked at from seventy years later, is an entertaining picture that is, nonetheless, a high-class B picture.

This movie features several Warner Brothers people, both in front of and behind the camera, all trying for their big break, but once you get past the charity party sequence, there is little energy in the performances. Perhaps that is why the camera keeps moving constantly.