Guilty Pleasures: Rancho Notorious

1952 Western

From RKO

Directed by Fritz Lang

Starring

Marlene Dietrich

Arthur Kennedy

Mel Ferrer

William Frawley

George Reeves

Lloyd Gough

Jack Elam

Frank Ferguson

John Kellogg

Rodd Redwing

Director Fritz Lang is not particularly known for doing westerns (this is his last of three) but he is known for stories of hate, murder and revenge and that is part of his attraction to this story.  I have always thought of this as somewhat of a noir western, certainly based on the fact that Lang was one of the best noir directors of all time.  Those sensibilities surely found their way into his films that weren't chiefly considered noirs.

I consider this a guilty pleasure because I have a bit of a love-hate thing going on with it.  Well, actually I neither love nor hate it but I have always been drawn to it and yet consider it corny, not at all naturalistic and containing a rather listless Dietrich performance.

Here's the plot rundown.  On the eve of his wedding, a cowboy's (Kennedy) fiancée is brutally assaulted and murdered.  He sets off on a manhunt (another Lang specialty) to find the killer.  Kennedy comes across the killer's dying partner who is only able to say Chuck-a-Luck.

It takes him a considerable time to find out what that means but he comes to discover it's a hideout (named Chuck-a-Luck) for the lawless and run by a formidable woman who used to be a saloon hostess.  Still, no one has any idea how to get there.

Then the trail leads to a flashy outlaw (Ferrer) who is said to be the lover of the woman.  Kennedy finds that Ferrer is in the town jail.  Kennedy commits some minor infraction that causes him to be thrown in jail and in the same cell with Ferrer.  The pair breaks out of jail (an amusing segment) and on to Chuck-a-Luck they go.

Kennedy is certain that the man he is looking for is part of the Chuck-a-Luck crowd but which one? He is aware his fiancée scratched her attacker and when he spots Reeves with a scratched face among the men, he is sure he's found his man. 

His relationship with Dietrich starts off a little frosty but soon warms up, much to the annoyance of Ferrer whose friendship Kennedy is in danger of losing.  When Dietrich gets out of her men's clothing and puts on an alluring gown, she is wearing a brooch that belonged to Kennedy's fiancée.  His face says it all... he's gone hatefully mad.

A publicity shot... Ferrer, Dietrich, Kennedy

After Kennedy is forced to join the gang in a bank robbery,  one of the them (Gough) intentionally shoots Kennedy although he isn't killed.  Gough is the man Kennedy is looking for but Kennedy doesn't know it yet.  Back at Chuck-a-Luck Kennedy quizzes Dietrich for the umpteenth time about where she got the brooch and she tells him it's Gough.

The gang gathers again after the robbery and there is not surprisingly a shootout.  Most of the men are killed and Dietrich steps in front of a speeding bullet and ends up the same way as she did in Destry Rides Again.  The ending comes with Kennedy and Ferrer riding off in the sunset together.

Lang was a mean authoritarian and this set was not a particularly happy one.  It was most unhappy for Dietrich.  She despised him so much that one couldn't be faulted for wondering why she took the role.  Apparently they tripped the light fantastic back in the early thirties but it had ended badly and neither exhibited much of a skill for forgiving.  She had considered walking off the movie, which she considered mediocre, but she didn't.  Ferrer always was one for gallantry and she was enormously pleased with how he looked out for her. 

Lang & Dietrich during happier times

Lang kept his focus mainly on Kennedy and on the motley crew holed up at Chuck-a-Luck.  All the action comes from the gunfights, fistfights, bank robberies and the tough talk and leaves Dietrich with little more than an occasional kiss and a song.  She feels like little more than a pawn to me among all the macho posturing.  

Maybe she dresses like them at Chuck-a-Luck to be one of the boys.  She is more feminine in the early scenes as a dancehall queen in a saloon run by Fred Mertz... ooops, I mean William Frawley.  There is one sexualized scene (another nod to Destry?) where the dancehall ladies climb on the backs of male customers and slap their butts across the floor in a race to the finish.

Dietrich was a middle-aged woman by this time and a grandmother.  She was unhappy about that, especially when it came to being photographed for a film.  She asked Hal Mohr, the head cinematographer on Destry and Rancho to make her look for the second film as she had in the first one.  It did not make her happy to hear him nicely say that's not possible.

I think Dietrich's performance suffers as a result of Destry.  Of course she's a saloon girl in both, she dies under the same circumstances.  She's a good bad girl in one and a bad good girl in the other.  Her name in Destry is Frenchie.  Ferrer's name here is Frenchy.  The writing here seems to want to draw Destry into the spotlight and that's too bad.  If one compares the two films, Rancho loses.

Dietrich was the draw and she was always fascinating but Kennedy, a most reliable and cherished actor, is really the star of the piece.  I loved his acting chops... he could be so sincere and kind and with a blink could turn nasty and lethal. Lang loved this bipolarity in characters and I certainly feel this is why Lang chose him for the part.  Regardless of which turn he took, there was always a nervous energy about the actor that I found compelling and which works very well for him here.  Actually, this is one of my favorite Kennedy roles.  Who couldn't love that fight in the barber shop?

Ferrer is fine as the romantically-inclined gunman.  His role is simply not as formidable as Kennedy's.  I can't imagine him liking this role... he thought much more of himself than to play a second male lead in a B western that didn't ask him to stretch his acting genes.  Still, he knew Dietrich... they showed up at some of the same parties... and he thought working with her might be fun.  He didn't know he'd become her protector. 

Most noteworthy were all those baddies... Gough, Reeves, Elam, Ferguson, Kellogg... western character actors all at their cowboy best.  Gough's role was important but his name was removed in the credits because he was involved in the Red Scare and Hollywood was afraid and stupid.

A tight budget kept Lang from opening up this western as, say, John Ford might have done.  Ford got Monument Valley while Lang settled for the oft-used Iverson Ranch in Chatsworth and on the studio's backlot with the ranch house on a sound stage amid its unnaturalistic stage lighting.  A long shot of Chuck-a-Luck was a studio painting if I ever saw one.  Really odd were some abstract, papier mache boulders that looked like they were constructed from photographs of Stonehenge.

And then there's this: Played over the opening credits is The Ballad of Chuck-a-Luck, a loud, obnoxious tune that sounds like it belongs in a horror flick rather than a western.  Worse, a different stanza is also sung at the openings of a number of scenes in a neurotic, overly dramatic fashion that makes me wanna hit the mute key or at least the person watching it with me.  Horrid.  Whose dumbass idea was this?  Lang wanted Chuck-a-Luck to be the title of the piece, too.  Fortunately studio head Howard Hughes nixed that idea.

Unfortunately the hackneyed story has been done in any number of other B westerns.  But Lang keeps the pace lively, there are splashes of his well-known cynicism and the story embraces the director's Teutonic look at morality, myth and fantasy.

Watching it may find me at one point calling it stylish and distinctive and later maybe it's strange or peculiar or bizarre.  But hey, it's a western with a campiness and a certain electricity about it and I was entertained.  It's a worthy film to be referred to as a guilty pleasure.

Here's the trailer... if you think you should:

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The directors