October 18, 2012
Charles Barton’s Hell
Town is a short, silly film that gives audiences a peak at another aspect
to John Wayne. Simply put, the man could be funny. In Hell Town ,
we see him prancing around the wild frontier in a cooking apron, ducking behind
chairs to avoid a villain, and exchanging comedic gems with his travel
companion, Dinkey Dooley, who never met a man he didn’t try to sell a lightning
rod to. In Hell Town ,
Wayne plays
Dare Rudd. It’s a name only a screenwriter trying to be too clever for his own
good would come up with. You can just hear his thought process: His life is a series of chances. I know!
I’ll call him Dare! That’s
nothing, though. In an earlier film, Wayne
played a character named Dusty Rhodes. Get it?
But I digress. You’ll have to forgive me for this, though. Hell Town
is only 59 minutes long, and for the first five minutes nothing seems to
happen. If I don’t add little sidebars, I’m liable to give too much away. As
for those first five minutes, they are a jumbled mess of stock footage of
cowboys and cows, in addition to some fairly incoherent cuts involving two
groups engaging in a gun fight. Who they are is a mystery, why they are
fighting is a mystery, and because of the editing, exactly which group we’re
looking at is a mystery. To make matters worse, the film cuts back and forth
between a virtual war zone and a group of cowboys peacefully leading a cattle herd,
which creates a odd mix of contradictory emotions, calm and panic. Just which
one the director intended viewers to feel is unclear.
Thankfully, Dare and his good buddy Dinkey arrive on the
scene to add clarity to the scene and give the audience something to focus on.
So just what do two strangers do when they accidentally stumble upon a shoot
out? Why, join the battle of course. The “right side”, Dare speculates, will
surely offer them a reward for helping them out. So they offer their assistance
– help from Montana, they call it –
and the smile on the face of the man they offer it to is more than enough evidence
that their help is appreciated. Suddenly, the fight is joined, and a puzzling
cry goes out. It’s the law. Run.
Leave it to Dinky to sum it all up perfectly. I think we’re on the wrong side. Luck is with them, however. The
law turns out to be Dare’s cousin, Tom Fillmore (John Mack Brown), who has not
only power, money, and respect but also a beautiful girlfriend he intends to
marry. Viewers familiar with Westerns from this period will know right away
just how unlikely that is to happen now that Dare Rudd is in town.
Hell Town doesn’t
set any standards for westerns in the sound era, yet if you compare it to some
of Wayne’s other early B-westerns, you notice progression in the genre. The
plot moves along at a brisker pace, the dialogue is more realistic, and
characters are more developed. I appreciated the way the relationship between
Dare and Judy (Marsha Hunt) progresses at a somewhat believable pace. Earlier
Wayne films ended with a rather abrupt announcement of marriage to a woman he’d
often only met weeks hours earlier. Here we clearly see Judy’s feeling grow
from mild amusement to genuine concern. Is it realistic, though, that Tom would
just sit back and watch as the woman he loves slips away? Maybe not. I doubt I would
be as cordial as Tom if a relative had designs on the one I loved. However, the
nobility with which he steps aside is surprisingly in keeping with the kind of
man he is, and Brown’s handling of the scene makes it downright touching.
It is doubtful anyone will ever call Hell Town one of John Wayne’s better films. However, having seen a
few of his films that preceded it, it is clear that this film is significant.
Watch Wayne’s performance during an unwise card game to understand what I mean.
In the scene, his facial expression realistically reveals his weakness and his
shame. He knows he’s licked, yet he just can’t bring himself to walk away. His
expression doesn’t reveal hope that his fortunes will turn around, just a
deep-seated despair that it is happening again and he is powerless to stop it.
It is in this scene that we see the seeds of so many of the Wayne’s most memorable
performances, and I was reminded of just how good Wayne can be in these kinds
of scenes.
Hell Town is
adequately directed. True, it relies too much on stock footage to extend its
length and has several moments of clumsy, almost lazy, editing. However, the
script is fun, its banter is clever, and its characters are well crafted. Plus
it has the Duke. With this combination, how can you go wrong? (on DVD and
Blu-ray)
3 stars
*A side note about Syd Saylor, who plays Dinkey Dooley. His
filmography on IMDB spans almost four decades and includes 418 roles. Quite
impressive indeed.
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