Tonight's Movie: California (1947) - A Kino Lorber Blu-ray Review

CALIFORNIA (1947) was my second film watched of the past week directed by John Farrow.

It follows Farrow's Alan Ladd film, BOTANY BAY (1953), and like BOTANY BAY, it was recently released on Blu-ray by Kino Lorber.

The two films also have in common that CALIFORNIA was originally slated to star Ladd, but he was in a pay dispute with Paramount Pictures at the time and thus was replaced by Ray Milland.

Milland may seem an unlikely Western star, but he knew his way around both horses and guns thanks to his service in the British Army's Household Cavalry. He works just fine here as Jonathan Trumbo, an army deserter turned trail guide to California.

Trumbo meets up with Lily (Barbara Stanwyck) as the film opens. In a scene highly reminiscent of Claire Trevor's entrance in STAGECOACH (1939), Lily is being thrown out of a Western town as a "bad woman." She's about to be put on a stagecoach heading east when kindly Michael Fabian (Barry Fitzgerald) agrees to let her join him in the wagon train being led west by Trumbo.

Lily and Trumbo are clearly attracted to one another, but they battle over cards and more. Once in California, Lily allies herself with powerful Pharoah Coffin (George Coulouris), not realizing that Pharoah intends to rule California by all means possible, which ultimately leads him to a showdown with Trumbo and Fabian.

I first saw this film in 2008 and remembered it being visually beautiful, filmed in Technicolor by Ray Rennahan. I also remembered it being a meandering disappointment, given the fine lead actors. I was curious to revisit the film for the first time in over 16 years and see what I thought, given the passage of time.

My original assessment pretty much held steady. The movie looks fantastic, all the more so on Kino Lorber's beautiful Blu-ray. Given the production values and top-quality lead actors, the movie should be much better than it is, but it's still a fairly uninvolving 97 minutes.

The film's main problem is the script by Theodore Strauss and Frank Butler, based on a story by Boris Ingster, is all surface and no depth. Stanwyck and Milland do what they can to flesh out their characters, but there's so much left out of the script, in terms of backgrounds and motivations, that they're just not all that interesting.

CALIFORNIA is rather like BOTANY BAY -- it's not a bad movie, it's just not very good either. Stanwyck and Milland fans will want to check it out, especially via Kino Lorber's top-notch Blu-ray print, but it will likely be low on the "rewatch" list after seeing it once.

The supporting cast includes Anthony Quinn, Albert Dekker, Roman Bohnen, Frank Faylen, Gavin Muir, and Eduardo Ciannelli. Familiar faces like Don Beddoe, Frank Ferguson, Stanley Andrews, Harry Cording, Lane Chandler, Will Wright, Ian Wolfe, Francis Ford, and Minerva Urecal pop up in small parts.

For those wondering, Barbara Stanwyck's singing was dubbed by Kay St. Germain Wells.

The extras are minimal compared to typical Kino Lorber Blu-ray releases, consisting simply of eight trailers for other films available from Kino Lorber. The disc does include optional English subtitles.

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

Tweet