Has anyone else seen this strange but somewhat interesting movie?
Drango (1957-Hal Barlett), an odd movie with horses and a recent broadcast on the Encore Western Channel, might be categorized as a Western, though in a sense it is "a Southern". In any case, it is an intriguing if flawed movie set between April, 1865 and New Year's Day, 1866. Starring Jeff Chandler, Joanne Dru, Ronald Howard, Julie London, Donald Crisp, Milburn Stone and Morris Ankrum, this low budget movie has an interesting premise. Shot mostly on one appropriately bleak street set, the movie sometimes seems more like an ambitious tv show than a feature film.
Union soldier Chandler is an Army major sent to a small Georgia hamlet to impose martial law in the weeks just following the ending of the Civil War. He is reluctant to impose his power militarily, preferring to "appeal to the better angels" of these former rebels' natures. Since he is accompanied by only one adjutant (John Lupton) on this detail, his ability to corral these sullen people seems unlikely anyway but he has other reasons for wanting to develop a relationship with these people. One thing that this film does well is show the utter devastation of the lives of these demoralized people.
Their town, which has been looted by Sherman's army on their march to the sea, faces humiliation, and, more importantly, starvation in the coming months. This point is made most poignantly by the introduction of a family of orphaned children led by a grimly determined, angry adolescent boy after both parents were victims of the war and disease and starvation that resulted from it. One particular scene, dealing with the fight to the death between this young patriarch and another starving boy over an emaciated chicken encapsulates the desperate situation quite well.
Yet, when Chandler tries to establish civil order by enlisting the support of the town's most prominent citizens, played by Donald Crisp and Howard as father and son, he is rebuffed. Ronald Howard, (playing a bitter variation of Ashley Wilkes, the part that his father, Leslie, played in GWTW and sadly, with none of his Dad's romantic mien), foments active rebellion through a vigilante movement. The handiwork of these night riders is seen in the first few minutes of the movie as they deal with an alleged Northern sympathizer in their midst. The violence that results might have persuaded a more realistic man to choose a different course of imposing order on a community in chaos, but Jeff Chandler's apparently naive Maj. Drango persists in his efforts to get the town fathers to help him, despite the divisions and reprisal this may bring about in the town. The film also makes a point of delineating the callous attitude of the Union Army brass toward the plight of the townspeople, as Milburn Stone plays a colonel who is reluctant to send any food or clothing to the isolated villagers, adopting a harder attitude toward the defeated that reflected a real change in the North's stance toward the South after Lincoln's assassination, an event that is only touched on briefly in the movie, though Lincoln's forgiving attitude seems to be reflected in Chandler's desire to help the town recover.
Joanne Dru, wearing little makeup and no glamour, stands out very well as she plays the angry daughter of the Northern sympathizer (Morris Ankrum, a '50s movie stalwart, especially in cheap movies). Dru may earn the best actor laurel in this film, but the alleged romance with Chandler seems highly unlikely and almost comes out of nowhere in the course of the story. It's so unlikely since Dru has reason to blame Chandler's mishandling of several situations in the town for causing her a great deal of personal and communal unhappiness.
Morris Ankrum & Joanne Dru play father and daughter. John Lupton (in the background), is the lone military adjutant who helps Jeff Chandler.
Julie London plays a Southern gal who seems to be involved in a rather twisted relationship with Ronald Howard's proto-Klu Klux Klanner, though the kinks in his personality eventually alienate her. As usual, Julie looks and sounds great, but doesn't seem completely credible as a fair flower of the South, especially with the false eyelashes and the 20th century diction.
The eventual revelation of the reasons for the Union Major's reluctance to impose order with force, and the ending, in which a muted Donald Crisp (in one of his last roles) as Judge Allen finally restores some sanity to the community with a cleansing act of violent atonement, brings the movie to a rather rushed close. Most strangely, for a story set in Georgia just after the close of the Civil War, there is not one African-American in the cast nor is slavery really discussed much! One other signal that this is one town not to consider settling down in--the presence of the ubiquitous Chubby Johnson as a ne'er do well, seemingly waiting around to take part in any mob scenes. You know that when Chubby is on the scene, this town will not be on anyone's list of prime real estate.
The star of the show, Jeff Chandler, was also an uncredited producer of this odd little film. He certainly deserves credit for trying to play a role of an imperfect man trying to make up for the past and going about it in a clumsy fashion, though Jeff, as John Lupton points out in one scene, definitely seems to be a man who needs a day off. Even though I realize that the man was stereotyped by his looks in the movies, limiting him to mostly testosterone festivals such as war and western movies, (despite his radio work in the comedic Our Miss Brooks as Mr. Boynton), seems more stiff and tongue-tied than usual here--but I still like the guy, for reasons I'll never understand rationally.
Maybe it is his determined manner, blending gruff tenderness and a "man's gotta do what a man's gotta do" attitude, and those chiseled features, steely gray hair and seven leagues deep voice that makes me such a sap for this guy's often poorly conceived movies. Despite the limitations of many of his movies, in his better Westerns (notably his Oscar nominated role as Cochise opposite Jimmy Stewart in 1950's Broken Arrow, which may be his best movie), you'd never suspect that he was really a boy from Brooklyn.
Drango (1957) is on the Encore Western Channel this month as follows:
Tuesday, September 8th, 11:40 AM EDT
Saturday, September 26th 3:40 PM EDT
Sunday, September 27th, 3:45 AM EDT