It's funny watching the elements come together in this complicated scam. On one hand, the set-up isn't quite as complex as it seems, but there's an easy sense of fun in every exchange.

This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

Clever and entertaining enough to recommend even to members of the 1%

This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

There is no earthly reason to watch this movie unless you are a huge fan or relative of one of the filmmakers/actors. It is completely inoffensive with nothing wrong and nothing right about it. It is very predictable. It has very little action. It is very boring. For example, none of the Indians were bad guys, and most of the townsfolk liked the Indians. Nice in real life, not so good for movies. I couldn't wait for it to be over.Three small note-worthy things: (1) Brad Dexter has a pretty big part as the heavy. He is the one actor amongst "The Magnificent Seven," who remained pretty unknown.; (2) I was very impressed with the gorgeous beauty and charisma of the actress who played McCrea's good neighbor on the wagon train, who continued on to California, leaving McCrea in Oklahoma. She isn't credited in the movie. I looked her up, Diane Brewster. Yummy! Too bad she didn't star as a female lead! and (3) if they were so offended by the smutty rumors about the Gloria Talbott character, they shouldn't have let her run around in that tight red dress.

As the title might suggest, "The Oklahoman" is set in Oklahoma, although that does not automatically follow; "The Virginian", after all, is not set in Virginia. The action takes place during the 1870s, at a time when Oklahoma was still known as the Indian Territory and was officially reserved for Native Americans, although in fact it also had a sizeable white population.John Brighton is a doctor whose wife dies in childbirth while they are on a westward-bound wagon train. Dr Brighton abandons his plans to move to California and decides to settle in the small town of Cherokee Wells. The main action takes place several years later. Brighton has established his practice in the town, but becomes embroiled in a land dispute between greedy rancher Cass Dobie and a small Indian farmer; Dobie has discovered that there is oil on the Indian's land and wants to force the rightful owner off. Another strand to the plot involves Brighton's love life. Although Joel McCrea was in his fifties when the film was made, Hollywood has never had any problems with older man/younger woman love stories, and such stories were particularly prevalent in the 1950s. Brighton therefore finds that two beautiful young women, one white and one Indian, have fallen madly in love with him.No prizes for guessing which of the girls eventually wins out. The film's politics on racial issues are, by the standards of the fifties, mildly liberal, but that liberalism does not extend to matters of the heart. The film's attitude towards Native Americans, in fact, is that they deserve to be treated as equals by the white man, provided that they assimilate into white culture and adopt the white man's ways. Dr Brighton's friend as a young man fought for his tribe against the whites, but after being defeated has given up his traditional lifestyle and taken up farming. Most Indians in Westerns have names like "Running Bear" or "Red Eagle", but this one has the distinctly Anglo-Saxon moniker of Charlie Smith.This film appears to have been made as a B-movie and is not, by any means, well-known today; I note that mine is only the third review it has received on this board. Before I recently caught it on television I had never heard of it or of its director Francis D. Lyon, and its star McCrea was best known to me for his role in Hitchcock's "Foreign Correspondent", even though in the latter part of his career he specialised almost exclusively in Westerns.Yet this is a film which I feel deserves to be better known. There is a good performance from McCrea in the leading role as a peaceful, mild-mannered man whose sense of honour demands that he should make a stand against injustice. (A frequent Western theme. Brad Dexter is also good as the villain Dobie, adept at using a mask of sweet reasonableness to hide the fact that he is by nature an unpleasant bully, and Barbara Hale and Gloria Talbott make a lovely pair of young heroines. The film has a strong storyline, and moves along at a brisk pace, leading to the inevitable climax. "The Oklahoman" may not be in the same league as the great Westerns of the fifties (films like "High Noon", "Shane" or "The Big Country"), but it is a good example of a very decent second division Western. 7/10

This is a nice easy to take B western that Joel McCrea settled into doing in his later years. The Oklahoman opens with McCrea's wife dying in childbirth and McCrea making a decision to leave the wagon train he's on and settle in what was then known as Indian Territory.Fast forward about seven years. McCrea, who is a doctor, has settled with his seven year old daughter in a small town in Oklahoma. He's got two girls interested in him, Barbara Hale who is rancher's widow, and Gloria Talbott a young Indian girl who babysits his daughter. Talbott's family has problems from the local town bully played with appropriate menace by Brad Dexter. He wants the land that Talbott's father Michael Pate owns and Dexter ain't too squeamish about his methods. Why does Dexter want the land and who will McCrea wind up with in the end? For those questions watch The Oklahoman.Fans of Joel McCrea and westerns in general will like this.

A doctor's wife dies during childbirth on a trip to a new life in the west. The doctor(Joel McCrea) decides to make a home for his young daughter in the middle of Oklahoma Territory. A pretty young Indian girl(Gloria Talbot)moves in to help take care of the child. Of course, the square shooting doctor is forced to defend her honor.A nice, wholesome cowboy drama set in 1870's Oklahoma Territory. A greedy rancher wants to claim oil discovered on an Indian's land. Interesting and easy to watch. Talbot, a familiar face in TV westerns, is equally attractive on the big screen. Barbara Hale plays the doctor's love interest. And Brad Dexter is the villain.