Great Day in the Morning (1956)

A Confederate drifter wins a hotel-saloon at poker in Denver but two rival female admirers, local Union sympathizers, Southern gold miners and an orphaned boy complicate his life.

Director:

Jacques Tourneur

Writers:

Lesser Samuels (screen play), Robert Hardy Andrews (novel)

Stars:

Virginia Mayo, Robert Stack, Ruth Roman

Cast

Complete credited cast:
Virginia Mayo	...	Ann Merry Alaine
Robert Stack	...	Owen Pentecost
Ruth Roman	...	Boston Grant
Alex Nicol	...	Captain Stephen Kirby
Raymond Burr	...	Jumbo Means
Leo Gordon	...	Zeff Masterson
Regis Toomey	...	Father Murphy
Carleton Young	...	Col. Gibson (as Carlton Young)
Donald MacDonald	...	Gary John Lawford

Storyline

After a card game Southerner Owen Pentecost finds himself the owner of a Denver hotel. Involved with two women - one who came with the hotel, and one newly arrived from the East to open a dress shop - he then has to make even more fundamental choices when, with the start of the Civil War, he becomes one of a small minority in a strongly Unionist town.

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Plot Keywords:

hotel | card game | 1860s | based on novel | child with a gun | 

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Taglines:

THE BUGLE BLAST that echoed thru history!

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Genres:

Action | Adventure | Drama | Romance | Western

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Certificate:

Approved

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

16 May 1956 (USA)

Also Known As:

Skrupellos

Filming Locations:

Silverton, Colorado, USA

Company Credits

Production Co:

Edmund Grainger Productions

Technical Specs

Runtime:

92 min

Sound Mix:

Mono (RCA Sound Recording)

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Opening credits: The characters and events depicted in this photoplay are fictional. Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

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Goofs

In this pre Civil War tale two Secret Service agents discuss the probability of war breaking out. The Secret Service was created after the Civil War.

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Quotes

Boston Grant: Owen, if there's a war, I'm North, a Yankee, you're South. What happens to us?
Owen Pentecost: I shoot you, I guess.
[He smiles]

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Crazy Credits

Opening credits prologue: In that part of our country which we know today as Colorado, the Indians fought the white man for possession of the land and the white men fought each other for the same land.

It was a small but bloody rehearsal for the War Between the States which was soon to follow. It had its patriots and its profiteers, its quiet heroes and its noisy flag wavers.

So one day early in 1861 - - -

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Soundtracks

Bonnie Blue Flag
(uncredited)
Music taken from traditional Irish marching song
Lyrics by Harry McCarthy (1861)
Passages integrated into the score

User Reviews

Another Shipment Of Southern Gold

In the last days of RKO and Republic Pictures with the B western having gone on to television, the westerns that those two small studios were putting out were not for the kiddie Saturday afternoon trade. Great Day In The Morning is a western with a few adult themes thrown in, Robert Stack is most definitely not bashful around the women, he won't be satisfied kissing his horse.

The plot Great Day In The Morning takes place at the beginning of the Civil War. The film has plot elements of three classic westerns, Hondo, Virginia City, and The Far Country. Robert Stack's character of Owen Pentecost is a whole lot like James Stewart in The Far Country. Stack is a southerner, but he's not doing anything for the newborn Confederacy without being well paid.

As for the women, Stack has two to choose from, pioneer lass Virginia Mayo and saloon girl Ruth Roman. In fact Ruth Roman is playing pretty much the same part she did in The Far Country. Like in Hondo, Stack is forced into a gunfight with a recalcitrant miner and later on winds up taking the miner's son David MacDonald under his wing.

And of course like Virginia City it's all about that Southern gold only here the southerners are the good guys. Not all the northerners are bad like regular army colonel Carleton Young and Captain Alex Nicol, but the two chief villains are Roman's partner Raymond Burr and hotheaded former army sergeant Leo Gordon.

Burr is an especially hateful character, he's got two things he hates Stack for, politics and the fact Stack's beating Burr's time with Roman. Burr was always a big heavy man, I met him during the early Eighties in New York, but in his early days he kept his weight down to some degree, if you've seen the original Perry Mason series you well remember that. But here to play the part of a character named Jumbo and he's as big here as I remember seeing him in person and in the later Perry Mason films. In fact Raymond Burr's performance is the most memorable one in Great Day In The Morning.

There's enough action for the traditional western fan, but there's a lot of sex in Great Day In The Morning as well. Jacques Tourneur keeps the film going at a good clip. Both traditional western fans and those who favored the adult western soon to be popping up on television will like Great Day In The Morning.