Misteraser
Critics,are you kidding us
WiseRatFlames
An unexpected masterpiece
Seraherrera
The movie is wonderful and true, an act of love in all its contradictions and complexity
writers_reign
An intriguing entry whichever way way you look at it, unavailable for many years and even now I caught it in what may well be a one-off screening. In my case I had several reasons for catching it: 1) The score, which boasts two standards, 2) a chance to see Gypsy Rose Lee, 3)William Marshall had a featured role, and that's about it. The score was the work of composer Jimmmy Van Heusen and lyricist Johnny Burke, who got together in the early forties and were staff writers at Paramount supplying songs for five of the seven 'Road' pictures (Burke did the first, Singapore, with James V. Monaco and Van Heusen did the last, Hong Kong, with Sammy Cahn) plus virtually everything Crosby did in the forties at Paramount, so this was a rare sortie to another Lot. William Marshall was married to two outstanding French Actresses, Michele Morgan and Micheline Presle and I'm a French movie buff and thirdly I have never actually seen Gypsy Rose Lee herself although I have seen both the Broadway Musical and Film adaptation of Gypsy albeit it centres on her mother. I'm glad I finally got to see it if only to hear Dinah Shore - who they contrive to make look like a freak - perform Like Someone In Love and Sleighride In July.
Terrell-4
Belle of the Yukon is the kind of mid-Forties Hollywood misfire that can lead earnest cinephiles to make clever wisecracks. My advice...put the rented DVD in the player, start folding the laundry on the coffee table and enjoy yourself. The movie is something of an uncertain romantic comedy-musical-western with a clever con. Randolph Scott is Honest John Calhoun, charming and untrustworthy. Gypsy Rose Lee is Belle De Valle, a high class music hall entertainer. The river town of Malamute plays the Yukon during the gold rush days. Honest John and Belle have a history that goes back to Seattle, where Honest John, then Gentleman Jack, had to skedaddle just ahead of the law, leaving Belle in the lurch. When Belle shows up with her troupe of dancers to play the music hall in Malamute, she finds the owner is Jack, now Honest John. He swears he's reformed. She's not so sure...there's a lot of gold dust in the town. When Honest John, who doesn't gamble, suggests the town pick an upright, non-gambling man to start a bank, guess who gets picked. We know the con is on, but we're not sure what the con is. Not to be too critical, but the director, William Seiter, gives us plodding direction even as the Technicolor photography looks like a million dollars. The dance hall costumes and Belle's dresses are so garish even Vincente Minnelli would have gawked. With one exception, the songs are no more than Hollywood professional. The acting varies from satisfying (Scott) to interesting in a kind of unformed way (Lee) to standard cliché (Charles Winninger and Guinn Williams) to pre-nostalgia (Bob Burns sounding like what Andy Griffith will) to really awful (Dinah Shore and William Marshall). The important thing to remember, while reining in the temptation for MST3K commentary, is that this is all done with good humor and good intentions. There are happy endings all over Malamute. Belle of the Yukon does no harm. Gypsy Rose Lee with her 37-23-36 figure, her great voice and her ability to make dialogue sound like one-liners can be forgiven for being no actress. I doubt if she ever thought of herself as one except when she was stripping. She seems to be enjoying herself. She was an intelligent, honest woman with a fine, skeptical sense of humor. She even wrote a best- selling mystery, The G-string Murders. Even though she probably received some help from Craig Rice, a good friend, she did most of the heavy writing herself. Barbara Stanwyck played a bumping, grinding Gypsy Rose Lee, now named Dixie Daisy, in Lady of Burlesque: The G- String Murders, the movie made from the book. William Wellman directed. It's a movie worth seeing. I'd skip the lumbering movie made from the Broadway hit Gypsy, based on her autobiography. The television special of Gypsy starring Bette Midler isn't bad. Gypsy Rose Lee had to grow up fast. Dinah Shore and William Marshall play the young lovers. Shore is Lettie Candless, daughter of Honest John's saloon manager. Lettie is an innocent young woman who sings at the music hall. Shore has two major romantic songs that stop the movie dead in its tracks. "Like Someone in Love" is pleasant enough, but the numbers were used only to showcase Dinah Shore. They are as out of place as...well, as romantic ballads in a Yukon music hall. The makeup department did Shore no favors. Her bright red Technicolor lipstick emphasizes how much teeth she has, Reassuringly, the older Shore got the more interesting she became. Maturity suited her. William Marshall plays Steve Atterbury, the music hall's piano player. Marshall was a big, passive guy without, as far as I can tell, any acting talent. He got by on impressively blond good looks. Close your eyes and you'd think you were listening to the high school lead in Brigadoon. Randolph Scott is just fine as a friendly, well-dressed saloon owner you'd be wise not to trust. He's often been the best thing in the movies he's starred in. I enjoy watching his old- fashioned (by current tastes) approach to good guy Hollywood leading men.
vitaleralphlouis
There weren't many Technicolor movies made during World War II because of military needs, but Hollywood generated a few. A 1944 RKO Radio Picture with a title like BELLE of the YUKON led me to expect a hootin' tootin' shootin' western yarn with an up-north setting. Wrong, McGee! This one is 75% musical comedy and 25% western, with big Broadway style production numbers rigged-up on the saloon stage. What you get is songs by Dinah Shore and Gypsy Rose Lee, quite a few running-gags, and a minor plot about a bank robbery. Almost no gunfire, no horseback chases, no real action.The 3-strip Technicolor of 1944 yielded stunning photography, but do not look for it here. Hollywood studios were poor caretakers of their old movies and this one is badly faded. Call this Exhibit A about Hollywood's snow job to the public concerning the quality of sound and image on DVD's. What they did was a careful clean-up job on a very few old films (such as To Have and Have Not) in order to sell the concept. But that's done with. Now they give us DVD's with C- to D+ quality, no better and often worse than VHS.
dougandwin
If you combine the worst acting , the worst songs, the worst script and the worst direction you will describe "Belle of the Yukon" - one wonders how Randolph Scott ever got convinced that he should be in this travesty of , I guess, a Western, but he was able to go through the movie with one expression only. As for Gypsy Rose Lee the less said the better, as her acting attempts were pathetic, and the odd one-liners she had to deliver fell flat in the worst way, and when she tried to look seductive, I was amazed Scott could keep a straight face. Dinah Shore was terribly miscast and looked past it, while two old stagers in Charles Winninger and Florence Bates must have dreamed of their good old days when they had been in good films rather than one of the great disasters of the era! The only redeeming feature was the color photography. Do not waste your time.
