ROSE OF CIMARRON (1952) *1/2 Mala Powers may be the least convincing lead in the history of film, and that's impressive in itself. Unfortunately she doesn't stand out as significantly worse than the rest of the cast while uttering some of the most trite dialogue in the history of westerns (every line here has been delivered better in each of the 3000 other films in which it's been uttered or muttered) in the unnatural hues of Natural Color against a background of bad sci-fi music. Still there's something so indefatigably incompetent about her, as she falls to the ground from being hit in the head by a rope ten seconds earlier, that you wish that she'd worked with the director she deserved and that who knew how to make the most of her talents (Ed Wood). No question about it, at times this movie flirts with things far dumber than itself, as if that was possible. And then it was over even more suddenly than it began, leaving behind a dramatic openness fit for a drive over to the laundrymat. Obliged!
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