Intense, gripping, stylish and poignant

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

NOT THAT STAR Gary Cooper couldn't handle a film of the Western genre, we can't help but wonder if this entry into Warners' considerable inventory of "oaters" wasn't perhaps an older, unused project that may well have been intended for Errol Flynn. Coop was certainly up to the occasion and did keep us interested.COMPLEMENTIG THE MAIN character in fine, true support are some of the guys who are synonymous with Warner Brothers. Although cast somewhat against type and somewhat hidden behind some extensive facial hair, we find no less than: Raymond Massey, Jerome Cowan and Steve Cochran. Added to this group, we find one of our favourites, Reed Hadley as Wild Bill Hickok, no less.THE STORY IS an amalgam of types as far as mood goes; an element that s common in many WB pictures. Looking back and in retrospect, it must have been successful and served the studio well.PLENTY OF WHIMSY and a total disregard for any historical accuracy are hallmarks that somewhat echo events portrayed in THE OKLAHOMA KID ("Sooners" settling the former Indian territory), DODGE CITY (Railroad coming West), THE SANTA FE TRAIL ("Bleeding Kansas" & John Brown), THEY DIED WITH THEIR BOOTS ON (George Armstrong Custer). It also added DALLAS to the lit of pictures named after particular cities; e.g., CASABLANCA, DODGE CITY, VIRGINIA CITY.WE WERE WONDERING if Jack Warner & Company ever did one called "BAKERSFIELD?"

Long before J.R. Ewing and some football cheerleaders made this Texas city popular, there was this colorful Warner Brothers western starring one of the greatest action heroes of Hollywood's golden age. Cooper plays a man wanted for arson who disguises himself as a marshal to unleash the real culprit. He convinces the actual marshal (Steve Cochran) to let him take over his identity and in the process, wins the love of Cochran's Mexican sweetheart (Ruth Roman). In going after the bad guys, he comes up against Dallas's most powerful citizen (Raymond Massey in a masterful performance) and taunts the bad guys in an explosive climax.If the idea of Ruth Roman playing a Mexican doesn't make you laugh (it seems that any dark haired beauty could be cast in Hispanic parts in this era) how about platinum blonde cult actress Barbara Payton as the wife of one of the bad guys and a group of actors who are supposed to play Texans but sound nothing like them? Two years before his Oscar Winning role in "High Noon", Cooper played a variation of the same role, and in studying the two films, you really can see the difference as to what makes a film tense ("High Noon's" clock is as much of a character as the human beings in the film, while "Dallas" has little or no tension at all) and what makes it simply routine. If it wasn't for the color photography or the presence of its cast (Cooper, Massey and Reed Hadley as Wild Bill Hickock), this could have drifted into the hundreds of "B" westerns of the time, entertaining in their own right but basically forgettable.

Just about every noted western city shows up sooner or later as the title to a western. This certainly isn't about the early days of Dallas which was founded right after Texas came into the union and was named for the current Vice President George Mifflin Dallas. Dallas was from Philadelphia, was once the Mayor there, and never visited the city named after him.What this is is a nice Gary Cooper shoot 'em up with a nice post Civil War plot. Hollywood abounds in those, carpetbagger rule in Texas and the men who do something about it. Red River is the best example.Gary Cooper is outlaw and former rebel Blayde Hollister who is "gunned down" by Wild Bill Hickok so he can operate undercover and get a particularly loathsome family named Marlow who burned his former plantation in Georgia. Aiding him is Leif Erickson who plays a tenderfoot marshal from the East (hey they weren't all Hickoks and Earps). Cooper takes Erickson's identity and Erickson goes along as his own brother.Up and coming starlet Ruth Roman plays the love interest. She's Erickson's fiancé, but Cooper has caught her eye.Two of the Marlows are Raymond Massey and Steve Cochran. Massey's villains are always shrewd and are usually done in by circumstances beyond their control. Steve Cochran fresh from his stint as Big Ed in White Heat is the vicious, but stupid underling brother.It's a good plot and a lot's been edited out badly. For instance at one point you see Gary Cooper in hot pursuit of Massey to Fort Worth. Then it cuts straightaway to the Fort Worth jail and no explanation of how Cooper got in there.Leif Erickson never made it to the top. He usually was the second lead who never got the girl. Television gave him the stardom that eluded him on the silver screen with High Chapparal.Steve Cochran usually played villains with a kind of snake-oil charm, like Big Ed in White Heat or as Doris Day's KKK husband in Storm Warning. Same here although the twist is he's not the sharpest knife in the Marlow drawer.Today's generation thinks of Dallas and they think of the Ewing family of the 80s. This is NOT the story of their early days, but its nice Saturday matinée fare.

I fail to comprehend these other mediocre reviews. If you like Gary Cooper, this is one of his best roles. His gentle intensity to right a wrong is what made his career. "Blayde Hollister" comes to Dallas to take revenge against Will and Brian Malowe, who burned his Georgia farm and killed his family. An inept Marshall arriving from Boston gets in Hollister's way, attempting to arrest him when interrupted by a street shootout between Hollister and Wild Bill Hickock. The shootout is staged to get the law off Hollister, & he takes the "back East" Marshall under his wing to keep him alive in Texas, as they switch identity. That was a great beginning, and the picture holds up all the way through. Will Marlowe has positioned himself in Dallas to run for mayor, while his men steal cattle to force foreclosure on the Robles ranch. Brian Marlow, the younger brother, is a loose cannon that keeps getting in the way. Hollister consistently makes a fool out of him, and eventually tosses a black cat across his path, which was truly bad luck.Action may be a little "slow" by today's standards, but it is one of my top 10 favorite movies."That's your last bullet, Will."