Nelson Eddy and Jeanette MacDonald were big in the 1930s, but the sort of Hollywood stars whose appeal was a sort of acquired taste. Still, because they were at MGM, it's not uncommon for their films to show up on TCM thanks to those old MGM films being part of the library Ted Turner bought. One of their films that I recently watched was The Girl of the Golden West.
There's an establishing scene involving a wagon train heading west to California in the pre-statehood days. Little orphaned Mary is part of that train with her uncle (Charley Grapewin in a small role). Mary of course can sing, since she grows up to be the character played by Jeanette MacDonald. Hearing her sing is young Ramerez, although we don't learn more about him until later in the movie.
Mary grows up and the gold rush is here. She runs the Polka Saloon in one of those isolated gold rush towns, and all the men love her, particularly Sheriff Rance (Walter Pidgeon). Mary goes to see an old priest she knew as a child and who is the liaison between the Europeans and the Native Americans, Father Sienna (played by H.B. Warner). On the way, however, the stagecoach is stopped by a masked Ramerez (Nelson Eddy). He was raised by the local native tribe and is a bandit because he has no other way to make an honest living. But he hears Mary sing at Mass and he realizes this is the same woman he heard years ago when she was just a little girl. Ramerez wants to see Mary again, but how?
There is, of course, a price on Ramerez's head, so he has to go in some sort of disguise. He steals the uniform of a US Army soldier who is supposed to be escorting Mary to a ball held by the local governor. Ramerez is a bit too forward, however, and you might think that's going to scupper the relationship. Actually, if you think harder about it, you can see that MacDonald and Eddy are the two leads, but at the same time there's that pesky Production Code that says Ramerez is going to have to pay for his crimes.
Rance has a duty to try to catch Ramerez and to do so, he lays a trap. The men in the camp town where Mary runs the saloon have struck gold, which means there's a lot of it around for somebody who'd like to steal a shipment to try to take. Rance lets it known where it will get back to Ramerez that the gold is being held at the Polka Saloon. So of course Ramerez shows up, only to find out that the person in charge of the saloon is Mary. Ramerez and Rance would both like to marry Mary! But he's still the bandit, so how are the writers going to solve their dilemma and give audiences the happy ending they would have wanted out of an Eddy/MacDonald movie?
I have to admit that I'm not the biggest fan of the singing of either Nelson Eddy nor Jeanette MacDonald. But in the case of The Girl of the Golden West, there are other problems with the movie, mostly having to do with the plot and the screenplay. First, how we get to the requisite happy ending while still apparently satisfying the Production Code doesn't quite work for me. Plus, the movie runs a shade over two hours, and in this case, that felt like a long two hours. I don't seem to be alone in this assessment, as The Girl of the Golden West was not exactly a box office hit. But fans of the pair apparently loved it, so if you want to see what made fans love them you might want to give it a try.
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