Tonight's Movie: The Cimarron Kid (1952) - A Kino Lorber Blu-ray Review

There's lots of great Audie Murphy viewing ahead, thanks to Kino Lorber, which has just released a pair of very welcome Murphy Blu-ray collections, Volume IV and Volume V.

Focusing first on Volume 4, the set consists of three titles, THE KID FROM TEXAS (1950), THE CIMARRON KID (1952), and DRUMS ACROSS THE RIVER (1954).

The first two titles listed above are "outlaw" movies, my least favorite Western subgenre, as there are inevitably many deaths and most often an unhappy ending.

The fact that THE CIMARRON KID, the first film I've watched from this set, has a less sour ending than the average outlaw film was one of the factors which left me feeling better about the movie than most of its type.

Murphy plays Bill Doolin, who as the film opens has been paroled from prison and is on a train heading to a ranching job.

Circumstances surrounding a holdup of his train lead to the erroneous conclusion by some that Bill is part of the robbery gang, which causes him to flee the train and join up with the robbers, his old friends the Daltons.

With no better options, Bill joins the gang, and after many of the men are killed in a bank holdup, he becomes the leader of the much smaller group of survivors, who include Bitter Creek (James Best) and his loyal girlfriend Cimarron Rose (Yvette Duguay, billed here as Dugay).

Bill also meets Carrie (Beverly Tyler), the daughter of a former outlaw (Roy Roberts), and they fall in love. But Carrie's pleas to Bill to quit the crime racket fall on deaf ears, though he dreams of someday ranching in Argentina...

THE CIMARRON KID, which was energetically directed by Budd Boetticher, is a colorful and entertaining 84 minutes despite the film more than meeting my expectation of many character deaths.

This was still fairly early on in Murphy's career, and while his acting was developing steadily he's still not quite there yet in terms of the charisma and nuanced performances he would give as soon as the next year or two. That said, he's interesting and sympathetic despite a fairly one-note character, as written by Louis Stevens from a story by Stevens and Kay Lenard. There was something special about Murphy from the start, and within a fair short time frame he lived up to his full potential as a Western star.

Beverly Tyler, who'd begun at MGM in the '40s with films like THE BEGINNING OR THE END (1946), alternated TV work with a handful of Westerns in the '50s. I've previously enjoyed her in THE BATTLE AT APACHE PASS (1952) and TOUGHEST GUN IN TOMBSTONE (1958). Tyler acted until 1961, then married Jim Jordan, the son of Jim and Marian Jordan (radio's famed "Fibber McGee and Molly"), in 1962. They were married until his death in 1998; Tyler died in 2005.

Tyler is quite good here as the spunky Carrie, particularly in a rare comedic scene where she and Bill pretend they're buying an engagement ring. She also looks lovely in Technicolor!

Duguay comes close to running away with the movie as the feisty, loyal girlfriend of one of the gang. One of the things this film has going for it is that neither of the leading women are passive wallflowers; for good or ill, they take things into their own hands to help their men, whether the men want it or not.

Duguay's Cimarron Rose acts as a spy, scouting out facts on the ground for the men, and a fateful telegram she sends uncovers a betrayal. Duguay began as a child actress, playing Maria Montez as a young girl in ALI BABA AND THE FORTY THIEVES (1941); her other adult films included FRANCIS COVERS THE BIG TOWN (1953). I first knew her from a 1958 MAVERICK episode; she retired just two years later. She died in 1986.

The deep supporting cast is headed by Leif Erickson, who's enjoyable as a sympathetic marshal. In addition to the actors mentioned above, the cast also includes Hugh O'Brian, Noah Beery (Jr.), John Hubbard, Frank Silvera, Frank Ferguson, Gregg Palmer, William Reynolds, and Rand Brooks. Look for Ann Robinson in a small role.

Kino Lorber's Blu-ray shows off the Technicolor cinematography of Charles P. Boyle to good effect. This is a pleasing Blu-ray print, and the movie's great look is part of the impetus to watch.

Extras consist of a commentary track by Western experts C. Courtney Joyner and Henry Parke; the trailer, newly mastered in 2K; and a gallery of four additional trailers for other Audie Murphy films available from Kino Lorber.

Thanks to Kino Lorber for providing a review copy of this Blu-ray collection.

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