IN OLD OKLAHOMA (1943) ** John Wayne (who else?) as the rugged individualist spirit of the American frontier coming to terms with the 20th century; Albert Dekker as the already tainted-but still retaining some shadow of nobility-spirit of pathologically encroaching commerce. Wow, I wonder who'll get the girl? This is, you understand, before the social mythmakers came to the conclusion that the Wayne and Dekker characters could be moulded into one without losing much, and would send out more sender-friendly messages. Um, hmmm. The more interesting bits of the story aren't shown. What happened between Dekker and his flotilla of better-looking and more charming floozies, for example, that rendered him in any way vulnerable to Martha Scott? She's a fairly homely schoolteacher if you ask me, and fails to register beyond the fascination of a bottom-feeding vicarious romance novelist. Her ceiling, I would say, might be that of district library administrator and in any event not that of friendly and helpful neighborhood librarian. Even worse, what the hell could have happened to John Wayne on his trots all around the globe that might have led him to notice her in the first place? Have they no women at all in Cuba or the Philippines ? I wonder. Dale Evans and Gabby Hayes have much smaller parts though we would have liked to see them more, but the extended proto hostile-takeover corporate climax is much more entertaining than the contemporary variation, particularly for those who delight to the sight of a wagon train of oil racing desperately towards virtually nonexistent Tulsa .
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