Dakota

I was recently browsing through the PlutoTV channel listings, and one of the channels dedicated to older movies had a John Wayne western I hadn't heard of before: Dakota. So, I decided to watch it in order to be able to do a review on it here.

The movie was made in 1945, although one of the opening title cards indicates that the print here is a re-release print. After the opening credites, we get one of those text scrolls that establish the scene of the action, which is 1870, or 75 years before the movie was made. Also, both eras are just after the end of a war (this movie was released on Christmas Day 1945). There's a vast untamed west that, at the time the movie was set, was only recently connected coast to coast by rail, although there are sections without rail, such as the Dakota Territory, where people have been moving under the Homestead Act to grow wheat.

Cut to the main action. John Devlin (John Wayne) shows up at the house of one of the railroad magnates living in Chicago, Marko Poli (Hugo Haas). At the same time, we see a woman throwing bags out her bedroom window. That woman is Sandra (Vera Ralston), adult daughter of Marko. She's throwing her stuff out the window because, as we quickly learn, she's also Mrs. John Devlin, and if need be she'll run away with him. Need certainly will be, as Dad doesn't approve of the marriage, forcing John and Sandra to beat a hasty escape while Dad and his men chase on another carriage, shooting at the Devlins.

The Devlins do make it to the train station, but along the way Sandy has rather foolishly waved the $20,000 that she's taken from the house, which is a signal for anybody and everybody who might know about the existence of the money to try to steal it from the Devlins. John was planning to take Sandy west to California to start their new life there, but Sandy has a different idea. Her father owns the railroad line that currently goes as far as St. Paul, MN. But Dad is planning to extend the line to the Dakotas, just needing to buy the land. Sandy figures they can go to Dakota and buy up that land first before re-selling it to whoever winds up building the railroad and making a killing. And Sandy will know where that railroad is going since Dad owns the line. Sounds like a criminal conflict of interest. Wouldn't you know it, however, Sandy gets the couple on the train to Minnesota.

Since the train doesn't go all the way to Fargo, the couple have to take a stagecoach through one of California's rock formations that simulate the old west to get to the Red River of the North which will take them to Fargo. The Devlins get on the River Bird, a decrepit riverboat captained by Capt. Bounce (Walter Brennan). News of Devlin's money has reached the area, and one Jim Bender (Ward Bond) shows up with his men to steal that money so that they'll be able to buy out the wheat farmers and get that land.

Devlin remains in hot pursuit, but it's not going to be easy for him to get the money back, since he's badly outnumbered, and frankly, Sandy has enough of a fear of guns that she'd rather John not carry one. They do eventually get to Fargo, and find that Bender is trying to install his corrupt friend Collins (Mike Mazurki) as sheriff. Together, they'll go to whatever means necessary to ensure that the farmers aren't able to bring in the harvest. This includes burning down crops. It's up to Devlin to save the day and get the farmers a fair deal.

Dakota was made during John Wayne's time at Republic, after Stagecoach had pushed him up the ladder of stardom, although true stardom was still a bit away with the later John Ford Westerns in the late 1940s and beyond. Vera Ralston was married to studio head Herbert Yates, and at this time she still had some difficulties with English, she (coincidentally like her screen father Hugo Haas) being from Czechoslovakia. That having been said, Ralston does well here, lightening the tone of filme while being a clever enough woman to get her own way.

Still, Dakota is decidedly not a prestige movie in the standards of the major Hollywood studios, and it's unsurprising that it's one of those movies that isn't so well remembered today despite being another John Wayne starring role. It's not bad, but there are definitely better movies out there.