The Armour Becomes the Prince

Seventeen years after he played the definitive merry rebel, Errol Flynn found himself in the opposite role in 1955's The Dark Avenger. A high adventure take on Edward the Black Prince, son of England's Edward III, the film finds Flynn in charge of England's occupation of Aquitaine. Lacking the energy and fun of Flynn's great swashbucklers, it does have wonderful visuals thanks to amazing costumes and great locations.

Obviously one of the film's first tasks is to make it seem like a really good thing that Prince Edward (Flynn) is occupying Aquitaine. It gets to work showing how he's a benevolent leader who steps outside his castle to meet personally on foot with peasants who approach him with grievances. Taxes were a big issue in Robin Hood and this Edward is adamant the peasants will not be taxed unfairly.

Unfortunately the villainous Comte de Ville, played by a simmering Peter Finch, has other ideas. For reasons that aren't made quite clear, the English King (Michael Hordern) hadn't punished or deposed De Ville when he refused to swear fealty after being conquered. So De Ville goes right ahead imposing taxes to raise an army against the Prince, the army routes the Prince's forces, and the Prince and his right hand man are forced into hiding. They stay at a tavern where they run into an uncreditted Christopher Lee.

And Lee and Flynn have a sword fight. But despite the fact that Flynn accidentally nearly severed Lee's finger it's a fight lacking greatly in ferocity. The two slowly and deliberately swing their blades at each other as though they'd rehearsed the fight only once or twice. Producer Walter Mirisch is quoted by Wikipedia as saying of Flynn, "Before we started to shoot, I asked him to diet and hopefully lose some weight, which he didn't do. There were only traces left of the face, physique and charm that he had brought to The Adventures of Robin Hood, Captain Blood, The Sea Hawk and all those other great adventure films of his youth." But, the swordfight notwithstanding, I didn't have a problem with Flynn's performance or the fact that he seemed older and slightly fatter. He just seems like he's lived a lot more and the world has made him a little sad and circumspect. He seems wiser than the fiery young upstart he was.

The historical Prince Edward was called the Black Prince though likely not for the reason the film invents. Most of the plot involves Edward posing as a Black Knight who poses as an ally of De Ville, insisting on anonymity until the English are defeated. Joanne Dru, the tough dame who took an arrow to the shoulder in Red River, is surprisingly flat as Flynn's love interest and the two never have chemistry. But the film's parade of costumes is certainly a marvel.

Another Ominous Colour for Water

Is conquest necessary for civilisation? Is it an essential human need? 1948's Red River mythologises the expansion of the U.S. but it doesn't sanitise it. In the conflict between pioneering cattle rancher, Thomas Dunson, and his adopted son, Matt Garth, is great character drama that at the same time illustrates broader issues of coexistence in a country that contains such radically different ways of seeing the world. With incredible performances, and keen storytelling from director Howard Hawks, this is one of the greatest Westerns ever made.

The first shot of a wagon train making its way to California in the mid 19th century establishes the sense of wonder in the endeavour. For the U.S. population in 1948, agriculture and ties to land was a bigger part of the cultural identity so it's not surprising audiences loved this kind of glorious dream of the past. But any revisionism in the movie has nothing to do with hypocrisy. When John Wayne, in one of his iconic roles, breaks off from the wagon train headed to California to stake his own claim in Texas, he encounters a couple of Mexican men who tell him the land already belongs to their employer. "You mean he took it away from whoever was here before. Indians, maybe," says Dunson. "Maybe. So?" one of the men replies. "Well, I'm taking it away from him," says Dunson.

Strained smiles follow before Dunson shoots and kills one of the men as he was drawing his own pistol. Dunson tells the other to go tell his employer what happened. And that, folks, is how the West was won, more or less. Fourteen years pass and Dunson has turned one bull and a cow into cattle numbering in the thousands. He can't sell any beef after the Civil War so, with the same boldness with which he staked his claim initially, he decides he's going to leave his land and move all the cattle north where there's a market.

His second in command and essentially adopted son is Matt Garth played by Montgomery Clift in one of those revelatory performances that shows how method actors were shaking up Hollywood in the late 40s and 50s. We first meet Matt as a boy played by another actor (Mickey Kuhn) who has the average stilted delivery of an average 40s supporting player. So when the film cuts to older Matt even his natural reactions in casual conversation are amazing.

The place Matt occupies in Dunson's heart is complicated and feeds into the essential mythology of the story. When Dunson left that wagon train at the beginning of the film he left behind the woman who loved him, Fen (Coleen Gray). In the film's first scene the two part, she begging to go with him to settle in Texas, he telling her it's too dangerous. She starts talking to him not like an individual woman but like an emissary for womankind. When he says the life he's set out for would be "too much for a woman" she replies, "Too much for a woman? Put your arms around me, Tom. Hold me. Feel me in your arms. Do I feel weak, Tom? I don't, do I? Oh, you'll need me. You'll need a woman. You need what a woman can give you to do what you have to do. Oh, listen to me, Tom, listen with your head and your heart too. The sun only shines half the time, Tom, the other half is night."

This mirror dichotomy of man/woman, sun/night will be echoed later after Dunson and Matt's relationship ruptures on the journey north. Matt is tied to Fen because Matt is the only survivor of the wagon train at the beginning of the film--he escapes with a single cow after the train is attacked by Indians. That Dunson makes his great herd from his bull mating with Matt's cow emphasises Matt as a symbol for the female half necessary for Genesis which Dunson neglected.

So as the journey north becomes more and more fraught with difficulty, it makes sense the conflict that arises between Dunson and Matt is one between a philosophy of force and a philosophy of compassion. When men want to desert, Dunson's methods of dealing with the deserters become increasingly brutal and Matt has to find gradually more direct ways in countermanding Dunson.

A woman doesn't come back into the film until the final act--an example of the famous "Hawksian Woman", in this case played by Joanne Dru. Her introduction is certainly impressive. When Matt joins her and a group of gamblers and prostitutes in the middle of circled wagons fending off Indian Comanche attackers she starts flirting with him. When she takes an arrow in the shoulder--it seems Dru was actually shot in the shoulder with an arrow, presumably she had padding under her blouse--she doesn't even change her tone of voice while he's focused on shooting.

The phallic arrow and her taking it so easily is one of the less direct of several ways that the film implies she's a prostitute. It also implies her independent spirit and ability to make decisions and take actions that don't necessarily suit her immediate physical needs or comfort. It makes sense that a woman with traditionally masculine attributes would potentially bridge the gap in the conflict between Dunson and Matt. But while it's an effective route for the personal conflict of the characters, it's questionable whether it resolves the larger thematic tension which would continue to be fertile ground for Westerns for years to come.