Linbeymusol Wonderful character development!

Solemplex To me, this movie is perfection.

SanEat A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

Griff Lees Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

denverbarndude I live in Bowie County, one of 37 counties in Texas that were made while Texas was a Republic, and this County was named for James Bowie, a hero of the Alamo and a Hero of the the Republic. The rest of the story is not so heroic. James Bowie was a forger, thief, horrible human being and land thief. In this area of Texas, he is loved for being at the end of the Alamo and being an irascible scoundrel who forged land grants, forged Spanish grants and just did some terrible, fitful things. He killed a lot of people in duels but having his name being kindly lent? Nope. Now in Texas, where I live, the Bowie knife is a real and really big thing. I own one and strap it to my leg when I go out to the wilderness. And it is a big wilderness. The area where Jim Bowie plied his trade (thievery) is full of big pines and lots, and I mean lots of water. We go out to the big lakes, but not one has been made by man. Only Caddo Lake, South East of where I live, is man made. That's where Jim Bowie made his claim. I don't want to go any further into this but Jim, or James Bowie as he has been called in this area, is claimed as a hero. But this movie is terrible at accuracy, wonderful for remembrance.

Robert J. Maxwell In this film, Alan Ladd is Jim Bowie, who comes to New Orleans to sell timber from the rural family farm in Louisiana. He wins some money, get all decked out in the finest fashion, meets and falls for the beautiful but treacherous Virginia Mayo, and fights or witnesses innumerable duels with knives, sword, and pistols.We follow him through business deals too, in which he makes a good deal of money gambling and trading things and speculating on land values. He keeps running into Virginia Mayo, which is not a bad idea in itself, but she deliberately lures him on and then dumps him for someone with more power, money, or breeding. Finally, he wises up. Two things have gotten him in trouble over the years -- Miss Virginia Mayo and that damned knife of his, supposedly forged out of meteorite iron; the knife, that is, not Miss Virginia Mayo, though she might have been. He blows off both of these trouble makers and marries a beautiful Mexican woman.I'm not a historian, but Wikipedia is available to everyone. That beautiful Mexican girl was Ursula Veramendi. She was the daughter of a powerful politician. Bowie promised to pay the family more than a quarter of a million dollars for the privilege but he lied about the land he owned. He lied about his age too. Ursula was nineteen and Bowie claimed to be thirty, although he was actually thirty-five.And here's how he made some of his money. It was illegal to import slaves into Louisiana, though not illegal to own or sell them. A reward, equal to half the value of the slaves, was given to anyone informing on slave importers. So Bowie would buy illegally imported slaves from a pirate, turn himself in as an illegal importer, and get half the value of the slaves as a reward for turning himself in. Then he would use the money legally to buy slaves for himself. A regular entrepreneur.None of this is in the movie, nor should it be. This is Hollywood's buffed-up version of the life of a man who started out poor and naive about women, but who finally won both a fortune and the love of a nice girl. He's a hero. At the fade out, he and Ursula are kneeling in church and being married. The Alamo is never mentioned. The Independence movement isn't mentioned either.Ladd, the principal figure, is ligneous. This wooden quality served him well in "Shane," where his character was supposed to be reserved, guarded about himself and his past, deliberate in thought and movement. Here, he's rather dull. Nothing much can be said for Virginia Mayo's performance either. She was fine as a Goldwyn Girl, the heroine of light-hearted action movies, and even as floozies in "The Best Years of Our Lives" and "White Heat." This is supposed to be a dramatic role and her problem is the opposite of Ladd's. She over acts. When her face is snuggled up next to his, Ladd's features are vacant while hers are twisted with gleeful deceit.The costumes and appointments are colorful and impressive. This is Southern society in 1830. Nobody's clothes are wrinkled or dirty. At least some of the duels we see really happened. Dueling lasted much longer in the South than it did in the North. New England was settled by Roundheads -- uptight, very religious, practical people with community commitments. The South was settled by Cavaliers, willing to take chances, to risk things, given to action rather than introspection, and they brought with them a culture of honor. It could be argued that the higher homicide rates in southern states are a relic of that tradition, what anthropologists call "the founder effect".But never mind all that. The film is strictly routine entertainment. It's Alan Ladd in fancy clothes trying to make out with Virginia Mayo and sometimes getting into fights. That's about it. Would this movie have been made if Jim Bowie's name had been Marmaduke Cherkovitz?

secondtake The Iron Mistress (1952)I don't get the whole call of honor that leads to duels at the slightest provocation (or less). In some movies it's a fabulous dramatic point, but here it's a nagging and recurring trick, a reason for some male chest-thumping and a little bloodshed. It also represents the way the movie depends on forced drama to make the events jump. There are exceptions, like a really beautiful and unusual hand-to-hand knife/sword fight occurring in a darkened room, with an occasional bolt of lightning like a strobe going off. This is cinema trickery, a real pleasure, not part of the real story, but it's a moment of relief from the costume drama and dueling the rest of the time.This is how this movie goes. Moments of unique drama are followed by long stretches of stiff plot development. I'm not sure how the movie reflects the real story of James Bowie, whose name was given to the famous Bowie knife (knives naturally have a big role in the movie, including the forging of the first true Bowie knife). But what works best is the sense of period sets and time-travel to pre-Civil War Louisiana. The romance isn't highly romantic, and the plot is generally stiff, but it is a kind of history story come to life. If you overlook the obvious liberties and gaffes, it's not an unwatchable movie, just a routine one. Alan Ladd, it must be said, is a little cool even for Alan Ladd (an understated actor). The film does lay out the gradual shift in cultivation of the South to cotton farming, and brings out lots of old rules like the fact divorce was impossible in Louisiana without an act of the legislature. People interested in this certain kind of movie making, for its own sake, should check out "Drums Along the Mohawk" (a better movie by far, but with a similar feel somehow). Here, the camera-work by the talented John Seitz is strangely dull (though it is in true Technicolor), and the scored music by the incomparable Max Steiner is straight up functional. Most of all, the many ordinary parts are put together without great art or intensity.

Davo-CC I've never really been a fan of westerns, I didn't grow up with them and I always thought the genre was overrated personally.Occasionally however a film comes along which has distinct appeal despite its genre, this is such a film. I'm not 100% sure why I liked it or why it stood out from the pack, there is a certain intangible aspect to it which really appeals; the closest thing that I can think of is `The Mountain' (1956, Spencer Tracy, Robert Wagner), it is a film which I believe has that same intangible quality.I'd recommend this one for both western fan and non western fan (like myself) alike.