SmugKitZine Tied for the best movie I have ever seen

BoardChiri Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

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

Geraldine The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

utgard14 Errol Flynn takes the job of sheriff to clean up lawless Dodge City. Bad guy Bruce Cabot has a thing or two to say about that. Flynn's great in his first western. Olivia de Havilland is the pretty love interest. Ann Sheridan has a surprisingly small part (considering the billing) as a dance hall girl who sings some songs. Alan Hale and Guinn Williams play Flynn's buddies. Terrific WB supporting cast includes some of the greats like Victor Jory, Henry O'Neill, Frank McHugh, John Litel, and Henry Travers. Also features Bobs Watson, a kid actor who specialized in two things: being adorable and crying on cue. Fairly routine western but very well-made in good old Technicolor. Love the Pure Prairie League!

bob-790-196018 This is a rousing western with great ingredients: Errol Flynn, Olivia De Haviland, Michael Curtiz direction, Max Steiner score, and vivid color. It's a fun movie. But it belongs to an earlier generation of western movies that was superseded by many films that later appeared during the golden age of the genre in the late 1940s and 1950s.John Ford's Stagecoach appeared in the same year as Dodge City and already pointed the way forward to a deeper, more grown-up western. It would be followed by other fine films by Ford himself, Howard Hawks, Anthony Mann, Budd Boetticher, and many others. These movies focused on character, complex themes, or simply the poetry of the western myth itself.What Dodge City provides is standard horse-opera fare elevated by great production values. We have the pure-hearted, noble hero, kind to all ladies even when they scorn him; the comical but dumb sidekick; the saloon brawl, the really nasty bad guy and his even nastier gang, and so on.There's a great opening sequence in which the new railroad train races a stagecoach. Another attraction is Olivia De Haviland, whose delicate beauty perfectly complements Flynn's persona. It's easy to see why Flynn was so popular in swashbuckling movies like this one--he could wield a six-gun or sword, handily defeating enemies, yet remain a gentleman. Compared with movie heroes to come--Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca! John Wayne in The Searchers!--Flynn was a Boy Scout.The famous saloon fight in Dodge City is way over the top. We are meant to revel in the high spirits and manly foolishness of many dozens of Yanks and Confederates literally reducing the establishment to rubble as they beat each other with every weapon available. Later westerns continued the tradition of bar-room confrontations, but the casts would be smaller and the situations far more desperate ones with lives at stake and justice at issue.

Petri Pelkonen Errol Flynn rides to his first western in this Technicolor movie from 1939.Michael Curtiz' Dodge City is a fantastic western.Flynn plays Wade Hatton who has to safe the city where violence flourishes.It is ran by the villainous Jeff Surrett (Bruce Cabot).He runs the city with the ways of a dictator telling what to do and what to say.The citizens are helpless until Wade comes to safe the day.There is also a lady along.She's Abbie Irving, played by who else but the wonderful Olivia De Havilland.Soon there might be romance that flourishes.Errol Flynn and Olivia De Havilland work great together in this film as they always did.Whether they were in the Sherwood forest or in a western town, there was always chemistry between them.Bruce Cabot makes a fine villain.Alan Hale brings some comedy to the picture playing Rusty Hart.The brilliant Henry Travers is Dr.Irving.I must also mention the kid Bobs Watson, who plays Harry Cole.The scenes with him are the most moving in this film.I really enjoyed this western story.They should make more movies like this today.

jmrssn In "Dodge City" Flynn and de Havilland make us forget they were ever Peter and Arabella or Robin and Marian. As Wade Hatton, Flynn is the softspoken - but strong- gentleman cowboy with manners and demeanor that would charm your great-grandma. I can understand why de Havilland was so unhappy with this assignment-her part is the generic love interest. HOWEVER..she gives it her all, delightful and believable as the intelligent, determined Abbie Irving, and she looks gorgeous. The scene between Flynn and de Havilland in the newspaper office has the spark we expect from these two great stars. Only complaint - not enough scenes of them together. And Flynn should have kissed her in the last scene when she agrees as a new bride to take the next wagon train west so he can clean up another lawless town. Alan Hale is terrific as Flynn's sidekick. Steiner's music is again stirringly beautiful. Sol Polito, the Oscar-nominated cinematographer, presents the viewer with the most beautifully photographed scenery and the wagon trains that took the pioneers west.One should remember that the film is not the cliché others have pronounced it to be. What you see here is the original. Curtiz knew how to fill a screen with action.