The Dark Horse

Another of the movies that I recently watched off of my DVR that's availalbe on DVD courtesy of the Warner Archive Collection is The Dark Horse.

The movie opens at a state Progressive Party's convention, where the convention has been deadlocked for days on end because neither of the two candidates fro governor can get the requisite votes. (It always amazes me that parties back then didn't have rules that after a certain number of ballots, you started eliminating the candidate with the fewest votes until either somebody got a majority or there were only two candidates left.) Among the delegats is Zachary Hicks (Guy Kibbee), who seems more concerned with how tight his shoes are than with political matters of the day.

The handlers for one of the two candidates comes up with the brilliant idea of nominating an outsider from an area that supports the other candidate, so as to split the other candidate's vote and win the party nomination. The other side calls this bluff, however, supporting the "dark horse" candidate, who duly wins the party's nomination. That candidate? You guessed it, Zachary Hicks.

The party bigwigs are shocked when the start talking to Hicks and realize the sort of candidate they have, a complete nonentity who knows nothing about politics. He says one of his positions is the abolition of capital punishment, only to learn that the state abolished it six months ago. How such a man even became a party delegate is beyond me, but then we wouldn't have a movie, would we? At any rate, a secretary working for the party, Kay Russell (Bette Davis), has an idea, as she knows a good PR guy, Hal "Samson" Blake (Warren William).

There's only one problem with Blake. He's currently in jail, not having paid alimony to his ex-wife Maybelle (Vivienne Osborne). But the party bosses go down to the jail anyway and listen to Hal. They're so taken by his speechifying that they pay the back alimoney and spring him from jail to become Hick's campaign manager.

Blake proceeds to put Hicks into a series of public appearances, where Hicks comes up with his tag line, "Well yes, but then again, no", as a way of avoiding difficult questions, which for him is pretty much any question. Hicks might even stand a chance of winning when the Conservative candidate (Berton Churchill) is accused of plagiarism.

But Blake still has woman troubles. He's in love with Kay, but he keeps stringing her along to the point that she's sick of it. She knows about the ex-wife, and when Blake falls behind on the alimony again (why wouldn't the party just pay it off?), Maybelle actually shows up and threatens to have Hal put back in jail. Hicks, for his part, is so stupid that he lets Maybelle see Hal. The Conservatives learn they've got a potential weapon in Maybelle, and plan to use it.

Watching The Dark Horse, it really reminded me of another movie I reviewed several months back, William Powell's High Pressure. It turns out that this is deliberate; apparently, Warner Bros. wanted to use the High Pressure characters again but Powell wasn't interested. The Dark Horse is an interesting movie, and could have been fascinating if it had focused more on the political campaign side of the story. Unfortunately, it winds up being more about Blake, to the movie's detriment, as Blake is one of those annoying smooth operator types.

Still, this being a Warner Bros. movie, you get the good production values, a nice cast of supporting actors (I didn't mention Frank McHugh yet), and still some social commentary even if it's more limited due to the focus on Hal's character. This is early in Davis' career, so even though she's billed second, she doesn't have as much to do as you might think. The Dark Horse is definitely worth a watch.

It would be nice if The Dark Horse were part of a box set, but apparently it only seems to be available as a pricier standalone.