Silver River (1948)

[Neville]

Plot: During the American Civil War officer Mike McComb dissobeys orders and is forced to destroy a million dollars in Union bills to prevent the rebels from taking them. After being court-martialed and expelled from the army, he decides to look only for his own interests. He starts a sucessful career as a gambler, eventually graduating to casino owner and silver tycoon. But his ambition knows no limits...

Comments: A different Flynn this time. I've been watching a lot of his early movies lately, prompted by how much I enjoyed his pirate films with Michael Curtiz. One of my surprises is that Flynn also made like a ton of westerns. "Dodge City" and "They died with their boots on" are absolutely fantastic, and if I find the time I'll eventually mention them here in more detail. However, "Silver River" feels like something of an anomaly, probably caused by Flynn's determination to move into more serious acting now (1948) that he couldn't move that fast.

The movie manages somehow to be an hybrid between your usual Flynn movie and a serious drama a la "Citizen Kane". At the beginning he has a great action scene, a saloon brawl and starts eyeing Ann Sheridan. Pretty much your usual Flynn stuff from the early days. But even then, already in the saloon brawl, he already introduces some interesting variations on his usual character. He gets thrown out of the saloon, which also doubles as a primitive casino, but instead of returning and beating the s**t out of the bouncers, he steals an army uniform (!) assembles some troops and, passing himself as an officer disgusted by the gambling and the boozing, orders them to storm the saloon. Later, when the soldiers are done, he and his sidekick casually walk over the KO staff (and the corpse of the owner!) and proceed to empty the safe. And when his sidekick starts pocketing huge wads of bills, Flynn scoffs and orders him to use a barrel instead.

This is the same cold-blooded attitude Flynn mostly carries during the entire film. He basically walks over all the people he meets, and once he obtains what he wants of them, he forgets about them. Think of a polite version of "There will be blood" and you'll pretty much be picturing the entire film. And Flynn does very good in his role. One can't help but watch his exploits in a sort of admirative way, even when he is going as far as plotting deaths. If Flynn had cared more about his career he could have lived a much longer career, but apparently drugs, booze and women were his main interests at the time. But that's another story entirely, anyway.

Back to the film, it's a terrific movie, although in a darker vein than his other westerns. After all, here Flynn plays sort of a younger version of "Dallas"' JR. But it's fun anyway, and Raoul Walsh's tight and fast paced direction also plays an important role in that respect.