Tonight's Movie: Frontier Gal (1945)

Yvonne DeCarlo and Rod Cameron star in FRONTIER GAL (1945), a colorful and entertaining Western comedy from Universal Pictures.

Cameron plays Jonathan Hart, on the run from the law after being framed for his partner's murder. The murder was actually committed by Blackie (Sheldon Leonard) -- though it takes Jonathan a few years to figure that out!

While hiding from the law Jonathan meets up with saloon gal Lorena (DeCarlo), and to say they have a tempestuous relationship would be an understatement. There are arguments and misunderstandings aplenty but underneath it all there's always a burning attraction.

Lorena ends up forcing Jonathan to marry her at gunpoint, after which he insists on a wedding night...and then ends up being taken to jail the next morning. (Lorena tells a character she can't decide if they were interrupted "too early or too late.") Flash forward six years and Jonathan returns...and boy, is he surprised to find he's the father of five-year-old Mary Ann (Beverly Sue Simmons).

More problems and misunderstandings ensue, but all's well that ends well!

This is sort of a Western TAMING OF THE SHREW, and it's played in such a light fashion that none of the problems actually come across as that traumatic. For that matter, I should perhaps mention that this film is quite unpolitically correct and sure to scandalize those who care about such things, but I took it all in good fun in the spirit in which it was intended, and I had a very enjoyable time watching it. I found the sequence where Jonathan keeps kissing Lorena, and she keeps slapping him, increasingly weakly, especially amusing.

The movie is almost a musical, with DeCarlo singing a few numbers; it sounds like she's singing herself at least part of the time, but IMDb credits the dubbing of one song to Doreen Tryden. I found the early sequence where Cameron first enters DeCarlo's saloon to almost feel like a musical number itself, in the amusing way the blocking is choreographed. The capper is when Jonathan makes friends with Big Ben (Andy Devine), who has a VERY big beer glass!

The genial Cameron is just right in the lead, simultaneously confident and befuddled, if a little too prone to take Lorena for granted. I found DeCarlo not only fun but touching as she keeps hoping for a loving relationship with Jonathan yet is regularly disappointed as he has his sights set on a "real lady." And if there was a more beautiful actress in Technicolor than DeCarlo in the 1940s, I'm not sure who it would be! Jonathan seems a little crazy for being so reluctant to form a permanent relationship, even if she is a saloon gal.

Devine, Fuzzy Knight, and Andrew Tombes form a sort of Greek chorus who are always there to advise Jonathan and Lorena -- often with unintended results! Jan Wiley and Clara Blandick play Jonathan's schoolteacher ex-fiancee and her very proper aunt, and their characters are unpredictable enough that I felt a little bad for Wiley's character being jilted.

FRONTIER GAL was directed by Charles Lamont and filmed by Charles P. Boyle and George Robinson. It runs 85 minutes.

The only really weak spot in the film is some exceptionally terrible process photography near the end of the movie. Obviously they weren't going to put a little girl in jeopardy over a waterfall for real, so I wish they'd found another way to end the story, as these shots are so poorly done they pull the viewer out of the movie.

The beautiful location filming took place around Mammoth Lakes and Kernville, California.

This film is available on DVD in a beautiful print from the Universal Vault Series.