Made in 1943, but looking a lot older, ‘War of the Wildcats’ is a forgettable western starring John Wayne who was at the height of his draft dodging powers at the time. He got a deferment for being a father of four so that’s all right then - at least he didn’t make loads of films pretending to be people who did the actual fighting. Oh he did? Very poor.
This film isn’t quite ‘very poor’ but I will have to up my typing speed if I’m going to finish this review before I forget it entirely.
We open on a train car full of people heading to the oil fields to make it rich. ‘I’m gonna get one of those new cars’ says one. ‘Did you hear about the Wright brothers’ says another, hoping to let us know it’s 1906 and to save the money for a caption. At the back of the train is the private car of Jim ‘Hunk’ Gardner. He’s an oil baron and a real sleaze ball, with comely wenches coming and going from his car. One almost showed an ankle.
At a small town he hauls on board Kathy, a teacher who is being run out of town for writing a scandalous book. He says hello and then plants a big kiss on her. Bit rapey there mate. She doesn’t like it, but doesn’t leave either and soon the two are getting on famously. Any chance of him getting his end away quickly evaporates when John Wayne shows up. His horse has died and he’s after a lift.
They all end up in a small oil town with the two men vying for Kathy’s favours. She initially goes with Jim and professes undying love. When he reasonably says ‘well maybe not forever’ - he has known her 20 minutes - she flounces off to Wayne.
Wayne manages to get a job as Jim’s bodyguard after besting the incumbent Cherokee but this proves to be a terrible decision when Wayne tells the Indians that they are getting ripped off by Jim’s 12% royalty deal for the oil on their land. Wayne offers 50% and after agreeing terms with Teddy Roosevelt himself, Wayne starts the task of getting 10,000 barrels out of the ground before a 4 month deadline expires.
Will he get the oil? Will he get the girl? Will there be dirty tricks afoot and a mad dash to the finish line in Tulsa? Yes on all counts!
This was a long and mostly dull film, but it was enough of a curiosity to keep me interested and, to be fair, there were a couple of decent action sequences.
The whole film hangs on Wayne which is a shame as he’s a terrible actor. Lots of soft focus close ups and dire dialogue about what his granny used to say. He is versatile though - a singing scene in the bath showed that he can’t sing either.
Albert Dekker was better and a sure lift for the Hedley Lamarr character in ‘Blazing Saddles’. His schemes were so despicable as was his moustache twirling. He never had a chance with the dame but made up for it with some scene chewing acting and a few punch ups.
The love interest was Martha Scott who, whilst only 31 at the time of filming, looked a lot older. This was probably down to her wardrobe that contained a few cast offs from Morticia Addams. She had bigger shoulder pads than an NFL quarterback and showed so little flesh that a suit of armour would have been sexier.
It was also good to see Gabby Hayes who delivered some genuine frontier gibberish.
The film built up to a big dash at the end when Wayne tried to deliver his oil by wagon after the baddie bought up all the pipes. He sets off with about 20 wagons and we see about 15 blow up and one goes off a hill. It’s a miracle therefore that he still manages to get 20 over the line!
I was surprised about the fairness to the Native Americans (well it is the movies!) and the frankly socialist values that Wayne was trotting out. No wonder he didn’t fight in the war - Joe Stalin never called!
There is some fun to be had in ‘War of the Wildcats’ but not as much as in a ‘Shake n Vac’ commercial.
Best Bit : ‘I’ll call you Kitten and give you a big kiss‘. ‘OK then‘.
‘W’ Rating 11/23
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