The Man from Colorado *** (1948, Glenn Ford, William Holden, Ellen Drew) – Classic Movie Review 10,957

‘They Turned the West Into a Jungle of Male Killing Male for a Woman!’

Good work from Glenn Ford, relishing his rare bad guy role, is upstaged by an even better William Holden as his more balanced friend, in the early psychological (i.e. lots of talk and little action) 1948 Western film The Man from Colorado, directed in Technicolor by Henry Levin for Columbia Pictures.

It is set in Colorado in 1865. Ford plays a gun-happy US Civil War colonel, Owen Devereaux, who becomes Colorado judge, and his peaceable buddy Captain Del Stewart (Holden) becomes lawman just to watch over him. Of course a friendship like this has nowhere to go except the final showdown. In the middle is Caroline Emmet (Ellen Drew), the old girlfriend Del has lost to Owen, but Del remains a friend to her.

Western expert Borden Chase’s odd but interesting premise was targeted at postwar audiences who would recognise the parallels with US Second World War veterans having rehabilitation problems. Now we can admire the fresh performances of the impossibly young looking stars, as well as those of a clutch of fine Western character players, most of them Columbia studio contract artists.

Also in the cast are Ellen Drew, Ray Collins, Edgar Buchanan, Jerome Courtland, James Millican, Jim Bannon, William ‘Bill’ Philipps, Stanley Andrews, Ray Teal, Ray Hyke, Ben Corbett, Fred Coby, James Bush, Walter Baldwin, Pat O’Malley, Mikel Conrad, Myron Healey, Eddie Fetherston, Fred Graham, Craig Reynolds and Denver Pyle.

The screenplay is by Robert Hardy Andrews and Ben Maddow, adapting Borden Chase’s original story, and it is shot in Technicolor by William E Snyder at Corriganville, Ray Corrigan Ranch, Simi Valley, California, and Iverson Ranch – 1 Iverson Lane, Chatsworth, Los Angeles.

© Derek Winnert 2021 Classic Movie Review 10,957

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