Three of a Kind

The big-budget western with expensive box-office names sometimes takes its root in history--or in an unreasonable facsimile:

Lone Star (MGM) shows how Clark Gable and Ava Gardner helped persuade the Republic of Texas to become one of the United States. Gable plays a soldier of fortune dispatched by ex-President Andrew Jackson (Lionel Barrymore) to Texas Patriarch Sam Houston with a message urging Texas statehood. Ava ("That's a lot of woman") is an Austin editor who sides with Broderick Crawford, would-be dictator of an independent Texas empire, until Gable closes her eyes in kisses and opens them to what is best for Texas.

All the movie's Texans, even the villains, keep their word of honor, respect womanhood and fight at the drop of a line of dialogue. When Gable and Crawford clash at the barricades before the Texas senate, mass slaughter breaks out. Then, at a word from the revered Houston (Moroni Olsen), the two leaders settle the issue in a fist fight, the ground suddenly clears of casualties, and both sides go off to fight the Mexicans.

Gable's mission also calls for hard riding, fast shooting, smooth talking and some of the patented old swagger that endears him to fans. When reproached for ogling Ava instead of tending to business, he replies : "I just believe in living a balanced life--a little of this, a little of that."

Distant Drums (Warner) is the Technicolored record of a daring exploit by Gary Cooper in the Florida of 1840, clearing the way for General Zachary Taylor's victory in the seven-year Seminole War. Swamp Fighter Cooper is an Army captain who lives among friendly Indians and designs his own uniforms out of buckskin. With a handful of men, he sneaks across Lake Okeechobee and blows up a strategic Spanish fort.

But the tough job is getting back, chased by enraged Seminoles and burdened by a party of hostages freed at the fort, including Mari Aldon, a new blonde starlet whose specialty seems to be breasting her way through thick undergrowth. When all seems lost, Cooper, like Hero Gable (see above), forces a decision in a hand-to-hand fight with the Seminole chief, this time with knives under water.

Red Mountain (Hal Wallis; Paramount) harks back to the most persistent historic figure in recent horse opera: General William Clarke Quantrell, the Rebel guerrilla. This time, in Technicolor, Alan Ladd foils the greedy designs that the script lays to Quantrell: a scheme for carving out his own empire in the West.

Playing a true-grey Confederate captain on his way to join Quantrell (John Ireland), Ladd shoots a gold assayer to even an old score, then takes captive a prospector (Arthur Kennedy) and his fiancee (Lizabeth Scott), who want to turn him over to the sheriff. He hands the prisoners to Quantrell. Gradually, as he falls for Yankee Sympathizer Scott, Ladd joins the prisoners in a desperate fight against the guerrillas and their Indian allies. Finale: like Heroes Gable and Cooper (see above) Ladd evens things up in a man-to-man tussle--with pistols and knives, on horseback, afoot and prone.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.