THE REDHEAD FROM WYOMING

US, 1953, 81 minutes, Colour.
Maureen O’ Hara, Alex Nicol, William Bishop, Robert Strauss, Alexander Scourby.
Directed by Lee Sholem.

The Redhead from Wyoming is a standard western, set in Wyoming during the range wars. The cattle barons were opposed to the new settlers. Maureen O’ Hara is a saloon dancer and singer, set up by an owner to buy cattle for him. She interacts with the sheriff (Alex Nicol) and various people in the town till she becomes disillusioned with the way that she is being used for the cattle baron’s war.

The photography is excellent, the characters are standard, it is once again a film about the range wars – the wars which are so much to the fore in Michael Cimino’s Heaven’s Gate.

Maureen O’ Hara made a number of program fillers like this during the early 1950s. The film was directed by Lee Sholem, a director of B-budget films and television who made a number of Tarzan films and even Ma and Pa Kettle at Waikiki.

1. An entertaining Western? The conventions of the West that were used? A 'B' grade Universal Western of the early fifties and its style?

2. Audience expectations from this basic plot, the strong-minded heroine, cattle rustling, the saloon as a front for cattle rustling, the heroic Marshall? The various characters of tho town? How well delineated were the themes, elements of the plot, conventional? Satisfaction of audience expectations?

3. Colour photography, music, the Western town, the cattle sequences, dangers, violence?

4. The basic authenticity of this kind of plot? The West, personalities, their power and greed, violence, the cattle issues? The involvement of people and loyalties, the law?

5. Kate as a sign of contradiction in this kind of world? Her strong-mindedness as she entered in, her personality, her relationship with Stan? With Duncan? The way that she was, used? Her allowing herself to be used? Her change of heart?

6. Villain and hero and their relationship to Kate, their attitude towards the law, to the cattle situation, to the power struggles?

7. The contribution of the minor characters for the atmosphere of a Western? Conventional heroes, villains, comic characters?

8. Memorable sequences in this kind of small budget Western, cattle sequences, picnic?

9. How valuable in this kind of film in portraying something of the American heritage, the American outlook on life, the tradition of the West and the response of people to the these characters?