Tonight's Movie: Woman of the North Country (1952) at Cinecon

One of the films I was most interested to see at Cinecon last Labor Day was WOMAN OF THE NORTH COUNTRY (1952).

This Republic Pictures film was another real rarity. To my knowledge, it's never had an authorized release for home viewing.

Going into the movie "cold," I expected a film with actors like Rod Cameron, Jim Davis, and John Agar to be a Western, but while it had a "Western" setting, WOMAN OF THE NORTH COUNTRY proved to be more of a melodrama, centered around the title character.

Ruth Hussey plays Christine Powell, one of a trio of Minnesota siblings who are wealthy thanks to iron ore.

Christine's brother David (Agar) doesn't have a head for business, so Christine pushes for control, backed by their other brother, murderous, greedy Steve (Davis).

Christine loves money and power and can be downright malevolent to get what she wants -- makes you wonder who raised these siblings! -- and she wants to thwart the success of geologist Kyle Ramlo (Cameron).  Christine has her eye on Kyle's nearby land lease, where he's found ore near the surface of his claim.

Christine goes to the extent of luring Kyle away from his sweetheart Cathy (Gale Storm) and convincing him to marry her; she bides her time for a couple of years before making moves to destroy her husband's business. 

This is the bare outline of a very detailed, convoluted plot which packs numerous twists and turns into its 90 minutes. The screenplay by Norman Reilly Raine was from a story by Charles Marquis Warren and Prescott Chaplin.

I'm not sure I'd ever seen Hussey play a character like this before; Christine is a truly awful woman, and Hussey conveys the ice in her veins from her first appearance. We never really know what motivates her, but she appears to have simply been born bad.  Double-crossing her own loving husband after a couple of years was truly "something else" to behold.

Hussey's character contrasts strongly with Storm as the warm Cathy; honestly, even with Kyle not realizing Christine's true nature, it's hard to believe he'd dump Cathy for the chillier Christine. I'm quite a fan of Rod Cameron's, but I think his role needed an actor with more nuance who could convey deep-seated emotions, perhaps someone like Dana Andrews.

Cameron and Storm, incidentally, had previously costarred in STAMPEDE (1949).

Agar was barely used in the film as the ineffectual David, making me wonder if any of his part was left on the cutting-room floor.  Davis comes off better in a sparky performance as the evil Steve.

The extensive cast also includes Jay C. Flippen, J. Carrol Naish, Hank Worden, Grant Withers, Barry Kelley, Taylor Holmes, Howard Petrie, Thurston Hall, and Virginia Brissac.

The movie was directed by longtime Western specialist Joseph Kane, who had previously directed Cameron in BRIMSTONE (1949). They also made RIDE THE MAN DOWN (1952) the same year as WOMAN OF THE NORTH COUNTRY and SAN ANTONE (1953) the following year.

WOMAN OF THE NORTH COUNTRY was filmed in Trucolor by Jack Marta, who also worked on several of the Kane-Cameron collaborations. All three men also worked on SPOILERS OF THE FOREST (1957) which coincidentally will be shown in a restored print at this year's Lone Pine Film Festival with Rod's son Tony in attendance.

The opening credits of the print shown at Cinecon, along with a couple later scenes, were in black and white, with the rest a fabulous Trucolor print. What a treat to see it!  While not a top-notch film and quite different from what I expected, I enjoyed it.

The final movie of the day, THAT'S MY GAL (1947), had some of the most striking Trucolor I've ever seen, heavy on the mint green and orange. It looked amazing!