Cattle Queen Of Montana
Posted: April 27th, 2008, 11:45 am
i've said before i wish that Barbara Stanwyck's Victoria Barcley could have been more of an action heroine that she was in Cattle Queen Of Montana. i think that was because in the early 60s tv wasn't ready for the action heroine type of leading lady, though Stanwyck's Victoria still got a chance to do some daring stunts.
Cattle Queen is an okay movie that might have been better with a stronger cast. if there is a problem with Stanwyck, she's to young at 47 to play a middle-aged man's daughter, it might have been better to make her the boss right from the start, maybe with a grown up son of her own. so instead of going after her father's killers, it might have been better at the age she was avenging the death of her child (just thinking it might have been better to have a mother son realtionship than a brother Sister one in Forty Guns as well). that said Barbara is terrific as the gun and pants wearing cow-girl, fighting her own battles.
the casting of the other main characters my have been a weak link in the film. IMO Ronald Reagen was a great actor as he showed in the earlier Kings Row, but in 1954 he was seen as a B-movie star, so maybe a stronger actor like Randolph Scott or Joel McRea might have been a more credible leading man for the great lady. also Gene Evans wasn't a grade a villian, but to be fair Jack Elam as his hired gun effectively plays the same type of roles he was playing in Jimmy Stewart westerns in the same period. perhaps a John Mcintire or an Arthur Kennedy might have been a better stronger villian than Evans.
Cattle Queen is an okay movie that might have been better with a stronger cast. if there is a problem with Stanwyck, she's to young at 47 to play a middle-aged man's daughter, it might have been better to make her the boss right from the start, maybe with a grown up son of her own. so instead of going after her father's killers, it might have been better at the age she was avenging the death of her child (just thinking it might have been better to have a mother son realtionship than a brother Sister one in Forty Guns as well). that said Barbara is terrific as the gun and pants wearing cow-girl, fighting her own battles.
the casting of the other main characters my have been a weak link in the film. IMO Ronald Reagen was a great actor as he showed in the earlier Kings Row, but in 1954 he was seen as a B-movie star, so maybe a stronger actor like Randolph Scott or Joel McRea might have been a more credible leading man for the great lady. also Gene Evans wasn't a grade a villian, but to be fair Jack Elam as his hired gun effectively plays the same type of roles he was playing in Jimmy Stewart westerns in the same period. perhaps a John Mcintire or an Arthur Kennedy might have been a better stronger villian than Evans.