I hear ya, JF, but all I can think is perhaps the casting was due to...Demographics?JackFavell wrote:Good Grief! Look at that man and then tell me rationally why Eddie Albert was the star of that movie!
As far as I can discern, the post-war period was really a lean period for GR. He had a few leads in movies few people saw. The Cisco Kid movies and 1947's High Conquest weren't really critical or broadly popular movies, though kids of the time probably liked Cisco--though the way that Roland played the character he was rather adult with a kind of dashingly surreal and quietly romantic quality more than that of an adventure hero.
BTW, there seem to be some passionate defenders of this movie on IMDb in the user reviews and the message board for The Dude Goes West, so maybe it is better than it sounds. James Gleason is in the supporting cast too, so how can it be a total loss?
Eddie Albert and Jimmy Gleason in The Dude Goes West.
I kind of like Eddie Albert, and think he was a pretty good second lead. I usually prefer him when he plays in dramas as a nutty military guy as in Attack! (1956) and Captain Newman M.D. (1963), when he could really be scary and effective. His movie career as a potential leading man in the studio era never completely recovered after he had a liaison with a prominent studio chief's wife, leading to a "sudden" diminution of his roles in better pictures. After that and the war, where as a Marine, Albert distinguished himself militarily and survived Tarawa somehow--a topic he scrupulously avoided elaborating on in interviews, his film work was all kind of scattershot. He was nominated for a Best Supporting Oscar twice for Roman Holiday (1953)--why, I don't know--and in The Heartbreak Kid (1986), but I think he played Susan Hayward's accompanist one too many times in the movies and roles like a psalm-singing Casper Milquetoast in 7 Women sure looked like career suicide. Good thing there was television, huh?