Songs and drama in the oil fields make for uncomfortable bedfellows in Rouben Mamoulian’s High, Wide and Handsome, a 1937 musical western that’s more satisfying in its docudrama-like narrative than it is in its musical underpinnings.
The Production: 3/5
Songs and drama in the oil fields make for uncomfortable bedfellows in Rouben Mamoulian’s High, Wide and Handsome, a 1937 musical western that’s more satisfying in its docudrama-like narrative than it is in its musical underpinnings even with experts like Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II providing the score. Count this one as a near miss.
After their medicine show wagon burns down, entertainer Sally Watterson (Irene Dunne), her father (Raymond Walburn), and their assistant Mac (William Frawley) are taken in by farmer Peter Cortlandt (Randolph Scott) and his grandmother (Elizabeth Patterson). Sally and Peter inevitably fall in love and marry with Peter’s speculative oil well on his western Pennsylvania property coming in big on his wedding day. All of the farmers in the valley follow Peter’s lead and find sizable oil deposits on their properties but run afoul of railroad magnate Walt Brennan (Alan Hale) who raises the prices to transport the crude oil to the refineries in Philadelphia (because he also has a major investment in the refineries; he wants the oil fields for himself). In attempting to find ways to circumnavigate Brennan’s treachery, Peter spends more and more time away from Sally causing her to despair that they’ll ever be able to build their dream home and begin a family.
Oscar Hammerstein has concocted a screenplay that’s reasonably sound and with readily identifiable heroes and villains (the villains are real scoundrels and aren’t the least bit clandestine about their nefarious schemes, united in their determination to prevent at any costs the oil men from getting their product to Philadelphia). But the six songs he and tunesmith Jerome Kern have laid over their drama rest there rather uneasily. Sure, the title song makes a rousing anthem for Irene Dunne to use as a pitch to sell her family’s snake oil, and Dorothy Lamour’s (who plays a shanty town singer in a floating speakeasy) torch song “The Things I Want” fits the mood of the picture at the precise moment she sings it, but Dunne’s two big ballads – “Can I Forget You?” when it appears she’s going to leave Peter’s home without a marriage proposal and “The Folks Who Live on the Hill,” sung on their wedding day on the spot she hopes will be their dream home – seem abrupt and lacking sparkle for the romantic moments they accompany (perhaps suggesting why the songs never entered the pantheon of the Great American Songbook). Director Rouben Mamoulian who was no stranger to musicals on stage (Porgy and Bess, Oklahoma!) or screen (he directed the magnificent Love Me Tonight) surprisingly doesn’t show much musical flair here, but his use of double exposures and a canny mixture of expansive locations (with awe-inspiring overhead views of the valley during a pipeline construction project) and soundstage sets are laudable and give this seldom-seen film quite a bit of visual heft.
Having triumphed the year before in James Whale’s Show Boat (also by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II), Irene Dunne here gets to show her singing voice (in both soprano extensions and in hearty chest vocalizing), her dramatic abilities, and her pluck and fire when she must race to save her man from certain defeat. She’d receive greater acclaim, though, and another Oscar nomination that same year in the highly popular and much celebrated The Awful Truth. Reunited with co-star Randolph Scott two years after they scored a major hit in Roberta (also with a score by Jerome Kern!), they seem a bit less amenable here though the script which has them at odds with one another for much of the film’s second half may be the culprit. He’s an amiable and hard-working giant towering over the three villains the film has come up with as adversaries: Charles Bickford as jealous local hothead Red Scanlon, the aforementioned Alan Hale as the robber baron railroad mogul (hale and hearty in his evildoing), and Akim Tamiroff as a landowner who just so happens to possess the very piece of land the farmers need to run their pipeline across. The young Dorothy Lamour sings well but has little to do dramatically, but doing extra duty in the comedy department are Elizabeth Patterson as Peter’s feisty grandma who brooks no insolence from anyone and Ben Blue whose reliable shtick plays very well here. And Fred Mertz himself, William Frawley, gets to sing and prance at the wedding with the jaunty “Will You Marry Me Tomorrow?”
Video: 3/5
3D Rating: NA
The film’s original theatrical aspect ratio of 1.37:1 is faithfully rendered in this 1080p transfer using the AVC codec. Though the master is a new high definition one taken from a 4K scan, the Universal engineers have not done much in the way of minimal cleaning and correction. There are some bothersome scratches here and there, and dirt and dust specks can be distracting at times even though the clarity is often magnificent and details in close-ups exemplary. Black levels are good rather than great. The movie has been divided into 8 chapters.
Audio: 5/5
The DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 sound mix does offer very good fidelity for audio elements of this age. Dialogue and song lyrics are always easily discernible, and the orchestral music and background score and sound effects have been mixed with professional ease. There are no problems with age-related hiss, pops, crackle, or flutter.
Special Features: 2/5
Audio Commentary: Dr. Eddy Von Mueller offers a low-key but somewhat edifying running commentary though it’s not without errors (this was not Dunne and Scott’s only appearance together, and he even brings up another of their co-starring ventures My Favorite Wife without mentioning him; he mentions Kern was seven-times nominated for best song Oscars but fails to mention he won twice).
Theatrical Trailer (2:43, HD)
Kino Trailers: Love Me Tonight, The Song of Songs, Supernatural, Pittsburgh, Caught in the Draft.
Overall: 3/5
Though it’s been mostly unseen for decades, Rouben Mamoulian’s High, Wide and Handsome does not reveal itself to be a hidden gem. It’s a pleasant if somewhat off-kilter musical romantic drama featuring only a moderate score by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II.
High, Wide and Handsome [Blu-ray]
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Matt has been reviewing films and television professionally since 1974 and has been a member of Home Theater Forum’s reviewing staff since 2007, his reviews now numbering close to three thousand. During those years, he has also been a junior and senior high school English teacher earning numerous entries into Who’s Who Among America’s Educators and spent many years treading the community theater boards as an actor in everything from Agatha Christie mysteries to Stephen Sondheim musicals.
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