VHS : Montana [1949]

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

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Rating: - Errol and his sheep take on scheming cattlemen in colourful
This film is fun! Errol is starting to look a bit ragged but he still has that old charisma which is what this film is all about. He sings too! The action is good, the story surprisingly original but is let down by a weak ending.