Montana

Montana

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Editorial Reviews

The star who brought frontier justice to Dodge City and San Antonio heads for the wide open spaces of Montana in this adventure saga about a bitter range war. Errol Flynn plays an Australian transplant looking to buy grazing land. But the cattle-raising locals wont sell to interlopers, especially one they consider the most contemptible excuse for a human being ever to cross the Great Plains: a sheep rancher. Flynns San Antonio co-star Alexis Smith is a flame-haired beauty with an eye for the newcomer...until she learns his occupation. In time, shell put aside her disdain for the handsome stranger. So will all the others. Or else.

Customer Reviews

Handome looking but routine Western

Reviewed by F. J. Harvey, 2010-01-29

Warner brothers made some splendid Westerns in the 'forties and many of them -They Died with Their Boots On, Dodge City ,San Antonio -starred Errol Flynn but both studio and star were a long way away from the top of their game with this altogether more pedestrian picture made in 1950.It is little more than a B feature and gives the air of having been trimmed down from an altogether more ambitious original concept.

Flynn plays the amiable but tough Aussie Morgan Lane who aims at setting up a sheep ranch in the heart of Montana Territory ,where cattle is king .The two big local ranchers Ackroyd (Douglas Kennedy ) and Maria Singleton (Alexis Smith )are vocal and violent in their opposition to the scheme but ,ignorant of his plans at first, she unwittingly leases a large tract of land to Lane with whom she has fallen in love.When the other prominent local rancher ,Forsythe ,who is striving to broker a deal with Lane and the smaller ranchers ,who are undergoing economic hardship ,is killed by one of Ackroyd's henchmane the scene is set for the final conflict between the cattle and sheep factions .
The main plus point of the movie is the luscious Tecnicolor photography of Karl Freund which makes full use of the rugged outdoor scenery .Flynn and Smith make attractive leads and their is a good support turn from Paul Burns as the grizzled town "character" Tecumseh Burke .he major deawbacks are listless direction which is especially obvious during a rushed and curiously undramatic finale which is handled in very perfuntory fashion .The movie is brief ,clocking in at just 76 minutes and this is reflected in the way the script does not develop either characters or incident fully.
By no means unwatchable,this is simply routine and unlikely to appeal to other than the usual audience for the Western

several sections of silence in the black and white movies

Reviewed by R. Bagula, 2009-08-09

The title feature is packaged with three black and white westerns
which came up as silent movies in my cutting.
The Errol Flynn feature "Montana' in is color
and is about one of the historical range wars
between cattle herders and sheep herders in Montana.
Some people blame at least part of the desertification
of the middle east on sheep and goat herds,
so there is some weight on the side of the cattlemen
in country that is dry/ semiarid where grass doesn't grow back
with every rain storm. In Southern California goat herds are used to control brush
on public lands. The western is unremarkable except that Flynn
plays an Australian because of his accent.
I kind of liked the movie but as I said the quality of my
dvd which came from the public library was bad.

"Mister...you're a sheep herder!" Men who like steak don't take kindly to men who like mutton

Reviewed by C. O. DeRiemer, 2009-03-07

"Montana Territory...1879...where cattle was king...where the law was a gun...and the men who drove the great herds up from Texas made the rules. They were hard men...they had to be hard to keep alive..." And not just the men. Cattle queen Maria Singleton (Alexis Smith) is not about to let a bunch of stinkin' sheep onto prime cattle land. She and Rod Ackroyd (Douglas Kennedy), equally prejudiced against mutton, run things in this section of Montana Territory. It's not going to be easy or pleasant when Morgan Lane (Errol Flynn) shows up on horseback with a lot of sheep following him. All he wants is a chance to prove that cattle and sheep can share the same land profitably. While he's trying to do this, sometimes with humor, sometimes with his fists, men will die, the sneaky Ackroyd will get his, a great stampede will take place and Maria will find out that at least some sheepmen don't stink as much as their sheep.

This routine oater is competently enough made, but there's not an original idea in either the script or the direction. At some point Raoul Walsh is said to have stepped in to help with the directing. Perhaps that's why there are some scenes involving Errol Flynn that have a little juice in them. At 41, Flynn looks his age. He may not be entirely convincing in a fistfight, but for the most part the movie shows him using more charm and brains, not brawn. His looks hadn't yet fallen victim to booze and gravity. That would come in the next two or three years. In The Master of Ballantrae, 1953, he looks as tired and worn as Roger Livesey looks corrupted and drunk, but Livesey was wearing make-up. The Fifties saw Flynn as just another alcoholic and the punch line of jokes. His last movie, released in 1959, the year of his death at age 50, was something called Cuban Rebel Girls.

For those who enjoy S. Z. "Cuddles" Sakoll, this shtick-carrying character actor, so cute...so wobbly...so predictable, shows up early in the movie and then disappears. For those who enjoy music, we hear Celito Lindo warbled around a nighttime campfire and Old Dan Tucker sung by rough cowboys in close harmony. For those who enjoy the bizarre, we even have Errol Flynn strumming a guitar and singing "Reckon I'm in Love"...

"I met a certain someone who makes me feel that way.
And ever since I met her I'm a singin' in the saddle
`Skidoodle diddle daddle' all the day."

Flynn smiles while singing this, but he must have needed a drink afterwards.

If you're interested in the eternal struggle between cows and ewes, you can't do much better than
The Sheepman, a sly western with Glenn Ford and Shirley MacLaine.

Flynn Shears Thru Again!

Reviewed by Dufus, 2009-02-07

This is just an average western, where Errol Flynn appears tired. The script is ok and the acting is fair. It's not up to San Antonio by any means. Wish it was in widescreen. BTW, the sheep were great.