Excellent, a Must See

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

Blistering performances.

A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

Preston Foster plays a saloon owner who takes in a child after she is born. Unfortunately, her mother died in childbirth. He uses her because he sees her as a source of good luck. But she begins to turn hard. Poker Flat is one of those Western towns that has lost its soul. Bad guys run free and Foster's saloon is their watering hole and a source of gambling. Soon a minister and a teacher show up and the little girl is plucked from her safe haven and put in a school. In the sappy movie world of the thirties, Foster falls for the school teacher and the minister tries to settle things down. Sadly, for Foster, he incurs the wrath of the people. The conclusion is right out of the single minded moralist's handbook. This has an outstanding cast, but the story is quite simplistic, even though it is based on a Brett Harte story.

"The Outcasts of Poker Flat" is a classic film that was originally made in 1919 and was remade several times--and this 1937 version is just one of them. It's based on two stories by the famous old west author, Bret Harte. And, to me it LOOKS like two separate stories as you watch the film--one excellent but familiar one and one that left me totally flat and didn't see to fit.This film is set just after the famed Gold Rush began and concerns growing pains that town experienced. In the earliest days, law was pretty much nonexistent and life was tough. However, with growth comes the forces you'd expect in bigger cities--churches, government, lawmen and folks looking for a civilized lifestyle. One of the forces pushing BOTH directions in the film is Oakhurst (Preston Foster). He is a gambler and his bar is the center of vice in town. But, he also sees that change is inevitable--especially when he meets up with a nice lady, Helen (Jean Muir), and the preacher (Van Heflin). What's next for all these characters? See the film for yourself.The best thing about the film are some of the actors. While Preston Foster is pretty much forgotten today, he was a leading man in the 1930s--and you can see why. Additionally, while Van Heflin is young, he already shows his abilities as a supporting actor (he later received an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor). However, the story is a bit too disjoint for me--with the ending not fitting in terribly well with the rest of the film. Overall, a time-passer but not a lot better.

Preston Foster is a tough saloon owner who must deal with a changing town which doesn't want him anymore. Central to his personal dilemma is his foster daughter "Luck", born on the eve of the first strike in a gold rush, and the new schoolmarm in town, to whom he has become attached. Some crisp dialogue, interesting use of close-ups in shootouts prefigures Italian style of 30 years later. Lackluster photography in the literalist RKO mode. Heflin appears as a town minister who's determined to be fair to Foster regardless of his occupation and their penchant for the same woman.

The second of the four filmings of Bret Harte's best-known Gold Rush mining story was mostly shot in a saloon set with many closeups. Virginia Weidler (who would play Katherine Hepburn's younger sister in "The Philadelphia Story") prefigures Tatum O'Neal's Oscar-winning performance in "Paper Moon" as the cardsharp devoted to the gambler John Oakhurst, suavely played by Preston Foster. Van Heflin was surprisingly (to me anyway) handsome but already very earnest here as the parson. The good girl they both want is played with some spunk by Jean Muir and the partner pining for Oakhurst by Margaret Irving. The film looks good (credit cinematographer Robert De Grasse) but lacks the sparks of Marlene Dietrich and James Stewart in "Destry Rides Again." As in that film, the virtuous hero is not a goody-goody and is slow to resort to violence.