BARBARY COAST GENT

US, 1944, 87 minutes, Black and white.
Wallace Beery, Binnie Barnes, John Carradine, Bruce Kellogg, Frances Rafferty, Chill Wills, Noah Beery, Henry O’Neill?, Ray Collins, Donald Meek.
Directed by Roy Del Ruth.

Barbary Coast Gent is a star vehicle for Wallace Beery, who had won an Oscar for The Champ in the 1930s. He was to die in the late 40s after a career offering characters who were generally big, loud and boisterous (including Long John Silver in Treasure Island). Many of his films were westerns.

This is a small film, Wallace Beery as a conman on the Barbary Coast in the 1880s. Binnie Barnes plays the proprietress of a saloon on the coast. John Carradine is a former partner who attempts to kill the conman.

When Beery’s character, Honest Plush Brannan, travels by train to Nevada, he lands himself in a private car owned by the manager of the railroad (Donald Meek). He is able to talk his way into the confidence of the owner, giving speeches to the population in Nevada, intervening in the marriage of the owner’s grandson to the daughter of a former partner in stagecoach robberies. The daughter is played by Frances Rafferty.

In the town, he ingratiates himself with various people including the sheriff, various businessmen, gets himself involved in a mine – but falls foul of his con tricks.

There is a tongue-in-cheek ending where, as a celebrity citizen, he opens the new prison – and becomes its first prisoner.

A footnote in the history of MGM supporting features – and the career of Wallace Beery.