Sadly Over-hyped

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

Fictionalized account of Bill Doolin, member of the Dalton Gang and founder of the Wild Bunch. The movie concerns itself little with history. Instead, it tells a pretty simple "outlaw trying to leave his past behind" story. The Bill Doolin of this movie is a relatively good guy who only kills in a fair fight. Scott's fine in the role. He could play this in his sleep. Nice supporting cast full of familiar faces like John Ireland, Robert Barrat, George Macready, and Noah Beery, Jr. Macready also narrates. Virginia Huston is Scott's love interest. Gorgeous Dona Drake and Louise Allbritton have small parts. It's not a good history lesson but it's a watchable western. Nothing special but some action, humor, and romance. A nice way to pass time on a lazy Saturday afternoon.

The western outlaw biography "The Doolins of Oklahoma" is another rough-riding, bullet-blasting, gun-slinging outdoors saga about the notorious gang of bank robbers that plagued the Southwest during the 1890s. Scenarist Kenneth Gamet, who wrote scripts for several Randolph Scott westerns, including "Santa Fe," "Coroner Creek," "Man in the Saddle," and "The Stranger Wore A Gun," keeps things simple and straightforward. This law & order western puts the protagonist behind the eight ball, and director Gordon Douglas had no alternative but to let the Randolph Scott hero die since he plays a real-life outlaw and the Hays Production Code was still in effect.Narration over action footage establishes the time and setting of "The Doolins of Oklahoma." The narrator begins: "There was a time when Oklahoma Territory had its great free ranges. The cowboy went about his daily work, contentment in his heart. His only boundary—the limitless horizon. These were peaceful days, then the cattle herds disappeared. The government cut the ranches into sections and they became farms ringed by barbed strands. The free range was no more. The cowboy, who would not be fenced in, stared in anger at the intruder, blaming him for their loss of livelihood. Instead of turning their hand to a plow, their hands went to the six-gun to take what they reasoned was rightfully theirs, then to be joined by others so the outlaw gangs. The James boys . . . the Younger brothers . . . then behind them the United States marshals pushing on relentlessly. It was our sworn duty to hunt down to destroy this lawless element. And then, finally, bolder than their forerunners—the Daltons. Coffeyville, Kansas, October 5, 1892. The Dalton gang becoming so daring as to strike in broad daylight. The Dalton brothers, with Sam Powers, Bill Broadwell and Wichita Smith." As the narration concludes momentarily, we meet Bill Doolin (Randolph Scott of "Westbound") in a saloon at the bar, enjoying a drink. He is the victim of a lame horse. The local town sheriff brags to one and all that the townspeople and he blew the living daylights out of the Dalton gang. Doolin, who hasn't revealed his name yet, observes that the Dalton gang was shot down in the back. U. S. Marshal Sam Hughes (George Macready of "Gilda") approaches Doolin. He observes: "Never saw a man so bad he had to be shot in the back." Hughes' attitude takes Doolin by surprise. Doolin refuses to identify himself and leaves the saloon. In the stable, he discovers Bill Dalton. Dalton believes that Wichita squealed on the gang. Meanwhile, Wichita complains to Hughes and the town sheriff about flowers on the Dalton's graves. Wichita is anxious about this, so much so that he heads for the livery stable to hightail it and spots Bob Dalton through a crack in the plank walls. The informer circles around, entering the stable through the roof and surprises Bob and kills him. Wichita's luck with Doolin runs out; Doolin guns him down in self-defense, but our hero knows better than to stick around and argue his innocence. He skedattles and heads off to parts unknown.Eventually, Doolin forms his own outlaw gang. Bitter Creek (John Ireland of "Red River"), Thomas 'Arkansas' Jones (Charles Kemper of "Yellow Sky") and Tulsa Jack Blake (Jock Mahoney of "Tarzan Goes to India") are members of Doolin's gang. A posse of lawmen pursues Doolin and company, and he decides to split his gang up and reunite with them in three months elsewhere after their trail has cooled off. Doolin gallops off to another town, Clayville, with Hughes in hot pursuit. He throws Hughes off his scent by hiding in a church and later buys a ranch from his bank robbery loot. He marries Elaine Burton (Virginia Huston of "The Racket"), but his outlaw cronies show up and ruin his marriage. Elaine's father convinces Doolin to leave Elaine for her ultimate good. Doolin and the gang resume their depredations with Hughes hot on their trail. Gradually, the law whittles the gang down, with a wounded Bitter Creek dying during a long ride across the badlands. Eventually, after all but two remain of the Doolin gang, Big Bill (Scott) and Little Bill (Noah Beery, Jr. of "Sergeant York") ride back to Bill's old homestead. He remembers fondly his days as a farmer with an alias and a wife that he had to give up. They ride to his old farm, but when Bill spots Elaine working it, he pushes Little Bill out the door, but Elaine catches them trying to sneak away. Bill wants to take Elaine to a 'no man's land' territory that neither Kansas nor Arkansas claims where they can resume their lives under a new alias. "From this moment on we're going to forget everything that happened in the past," Elaine agrees. Just as things are looking up for our outlaw protagonist, Marshal Hughes and Marshal Heck Thomas (Robert Barrat of "The Texans") come knocking at the farm; they pose as census takers to get information out of Elaine. Elaine heads off into town with money to buy supplies. Doolin heads off elsewhere, but before he returns, Hughes and his deputies turns up impersonating census takers and question Elaine about her husband. Elaine heads into town. Little Bill rides out to warn Doolin about Hughes. Doolin is riding with a herd of horses and needs to get into Clayville, so Little Bill stampedes the horses to give Doolin a way to sneak into town and get Elaine. During the stampede, Little Bill dies when his horse goes down. Meanwhile, Doolin finds Elaine in the church and orders her to head out with the words of Elaine's father ringing in his head that he must leave his daughter alone. Doolin accepts his destiny, sends Elaine away, and walks out to be shot by the posse."The Doolins of Oklahoma" is a predictable, run of the mill oater.

The big switch in THE DOOLINS OF OKLAHOMA is that GEORGE MACREADY is on the side of the law as a U.S. Marshall, while RANDOLPH SCOTT strays far from the heroic cowboy image he played in so many previous westerns.He's a hunted man, a fugitive wanted for murder during the era of the Dalton Brothers--and rightly concerned about his survival. As Bill Doolin, he forms his own gang of robbers. On the lam from some pursuers, he enters a church during service and meets a family of church-goers, falling in love with the deacon's daughter. Soon he has a farm, is married to the young lady (VIRGINIA HOUSTON) and wants to go straight and put the past behind him. That is, until his old friends from the Doolin gang show up in town and have other ideas.When his wife learns his real identity, he rides off to rejoin the gang after a talk with her deacon father (GRIFF BARNETT). The western takes a darker turn, the action gets grittier, and the gang members--including NOAH BEERY, JR., JOHN IRELAND and JOCK MAHONEY--have a little more to do, including some energetic fight scenes well directed by Gordon Douglas.With a good background score by George Duning, it's a better than average western with Scott in fine form as the ambiguous anti-hero.

In one of the few times in Randolph Scott's career he played a real character, he's notorious outlaw Bill Doolin who was active in the Oklahoma Territory in the Gay Nineties until the law took its course.Scott had previously played Wyatt Earp in Frontier Marshal and Bat Masterson in Trail Street and was Sam Starr in Belle Starr. But here he plays real life outlaw protagonist Bill Doolin in his own starring film and not in support of Gene Tierney in Belle Starr or a legendary good guy as in the first two. But after watching The Doolins of Oklahoma you'd think Bill Doolin was forced into a life of crime.No doubt Bill Doolin (1858-1896) may have been forced economically to turn outlaw, but he certainly did take to the trade, much like his earlier peer Jesse James. The film does touch upon parts of the Doolin legend, such as him being in on the Dalton gang raid in Coffeyville because he was holding the horses. You can't reduce Randolph Scott to holding horses so in this film his horse pulled up lame. His band certainly had some colorful names and in fact those were the names of his men. I liked John Ireland and Noah Beery, Jr. best of that bunch. George MacReady who showed up in many a Scott western, here is a U.S. Marshal for a change and ostensibly a good guy for once.It's not history, but it's a good Randolph Scott western that forgets the facts and films the legend.