California *** (1947, Ray Milland, Barbara Stanwyck, Barry Fitzgerald, Albert Dekker, George Coulouris, Anthony Quinn, Julia Faye) – Classic Movie Review 11,296

California (1947): ‘IT WAS A PARADISE OF GAMBLERS, GUNMEN AND GLITTERING GIRLS!’… 

Director John Farrow’s 1947 Paramount Pictures Western film California stars Ray Milland, Barbara Stanwyck and Barry Fitzgerald, with a screenplay by Frank Butler and Theodore Strauss, based on a story by Boris Ingster.

Wagonmaster Jonathan Trumbo (Ray Milland), a Civil War deserter and gold digger, meets up with easy-virtue saloon gal Lily Bishop (Barbara Stanwyck) and battles patriarch Captain Pharaoh Coffin (George Coulouris) and the bad guys trying to stop California become a state in the mid-19th century.

California (1947), with Ray Milland and Barry Fitzgerald.

California is a moderate Paramount Western epic (though it runs only 97 minutes) that is set bound, talky and slow moving, with an unsurprising script chock full of the usual cowboy clichés. But Milland, Stanwyck, Ray Rennahan’s Technicolor cinematography and Victor Young’s score are all outstanding.

Also in the cast are Albert Dekker, George Coulouris, Anthony Quinn, Julia Faye, Frank Faylen, Gavin Muir, James Burke, Eduardo Ciannelli, Roman Bohnen, Howard Freeman, Minerva Urecal, Gertrude Hoffman, Philip Van Zandt, Lane Chandler, Ralph Dunn, Russ Clark, Jeff Corey, Dick Wessel, and Will Wright.

Paramount released it in a double bill with Desert Fury (1947) in February 1958.

© Derek Winnert 2021 Classic Movie Review 11,296

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