This is strange and enjoyable, an odd mix of straight genre and novel plot.
Superficially, it is a genre western in all its component parts:
Army, including a rough and tumble, betting, chewing sarge. A redheaded owner of a bar, essentially that abstraction of a whore that only exists in movieland. A more beautiful "innocent" woman, goodhearted. A lone rancher on a mission of revenge. A gang of thieving, murdering Indians, led by an evil mastermind. A solidly honest gambler. Color. Traditional score.
And most of the action is of the ordinary kind: barroom fights, barroom singing (in the Red Feather, where our redhead works -- guess that's where the title comes from). And there's the cowboy rescuing the pert damsel again and again. He ends up with her after thwarting her wedding to the unrecognized bad guy. (who she doesn't know killed her parents).
But this has some twists that actually make it interesting, enough unpredictable that you may find it interesting.
The shootout at the end involves ladders and dimension, rare for a picture of this era.
But the big deal for me: the setup for the first three quarters of the movie is that the redhead and the guy who turns out to be the mysterious "sidewinder" have a big quarrel. We expect to learn that she is his wife or sister. Or that she is the sidewinder. We expect that the bad guy will die, but that the tart with a heart will survive. That's the west, right?
No. The whole thing leads up to a massive shootout which just happens to involve her and a group of men who mysteriously would follow her into such a thing. No problem, we think, her hidden power and role will be uncovered in some way.
Nope. An errant bullet in the shootout -- not even from anyone important -- fells her. She dies. We never learn the puzzle that has captured us throughout. We've been tricked by the shape of the thing, which so clearly is a genre movie, but at the end, no genre ending?
What a thrill.
Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching
Superficially, it is a genre western in all its component parts:
Army, including a rough and tumble, betting, chewing sarge. A redheaded owner of a bar, essentially that abstraction of a whore that only exists in movieland. A more beautiful "innocent" woman, goodhearted. A lone rancher on a mission of revenge. A gang of thieving, murdering Indians, led by an evil mastermind. A solidly honest gambler. Color. Traditional score.
And most of the action is of the ordinary kind: barroom fights, barroom singing (in the Red Feather, where our redhead works -- guess that's where the title comes from). And there's the cowboy rescuing the pert damsel again and again. He ends up with her after thwarting her wedding to the unrecognized bad guy. (who she doesn't know killed her parents).
But this has some twists that actually make it interesting, enough unpredictable that you may find it interesting.
The shootout at the end involves ladders and dimension, rare for a picture of this era.
But the big deal for me: the setup for the first three quarters of the movie is that the redhead and the guy who turns out to be the mysterious "sidewinder" have a big quarrel. We expect to learn that she is his wife or sister. Or that she is the sidewinder. We expect that the bad guy will die, but that the tart with a heart will survive. That's the west, right?
No. The whole thing leads up to a massive shootout which just happens to involve her and a group of men who mysteriously would follow her into such a thing. No problem, we think, her hidden power and role will be uncovered in some way.
Nope. An errant bullet in the shootout -- not even from anyone important -- fells her. She dies. We never learn the puzzle that has captured us throughout. We've been tricked by the shape of the thing, which so clearly is a genre movie, but at the end, no genre ending?
What a thrill.
Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching