Film review: The Westerner (1940)

I feel like I say this a lot, and it might just reveal the differences in viewing expectations across the decades, but this was a bit of a weird one.  It has a strange mixture of tones (again, a running theme): the backdrop of the film, revealed in an opening monologue with scrolling text, is the battle between cattle ranchers and homesteaders in Texas before it was properly a state.  The film then begins with an incident where ranchers run into fences put up by homesteaders, a firefight breaks out, during which a homesteader shoots a cow.  This unfortunate man is then hauled off by the ranchers and set before "Judge" (he appears to be entirely self-appointed) Roy Bean (a movie-stealing Walter Brennan, whose very distinctive voice is clearly the one being imitated by the Simpsons when they do crotchety old Western types, and who won his third Oscar for the performance) who runs a bar in a place called Vinegaroon which doubles as his courtroom (and a shrine to "Jersey" Lily Langtry, of which more later) who promptly orders the man hung (after he tries to defend himself by saying that he was trying to hit one of the ranchers, a lesser offense).  And he is, to surprisingly jaunty music!  Immediately following this incident, our hero Gary Cooper ("Cole Harden") is dragged in, on a charge of stealing the horse of one of Bean's cronies ("Chickenfoot").  Cooper being Cooper (i.e., laconic to a fault) does not put up much of a defense, only saying that he bought the horse, he didn't steal it, but he quickly catches on to Bean's adoration of Lily Langtry and stalls him by saying that he has not only met her, he has a lock of her hair (after describing its color in lyrical terms).  Bean is desperate to see it, but Cole says he will have to write to El Paso to get it and it'll take a couple of weeks to arrive.  So Cole's sentence is suspended (instead of him being suspended) for that time.  While they drink to this (with liquor that dissolves the surface of the bar if you spill it) the man who sold the horse to Cole walks in. 

A fight ensues, the man tries to shoot Cole but is shot by Bean (after Cole's got his $60 back for the horse) and they all drink to celebrate.  Oh, before this, when it looked like Cole was going to get hung (before he dreamed up his Langtry defense), one of the homesteaders, a young woman called Jane Ellen stormed in to demand the return of the man who'd been hung (at which Bean said he'd "seen him hanging around outside").  She obviously made an impact on Cole (she spoke up in his defense too) because when he wakes up (lying in bed with Bean) after the drunken celebrating, and after he convinces Bean that he won Chickenfoot's horse back in a poker game ("Don't you remember?") he canters off (chased by Bean to ensure he honors his promise to give him the lock of Langry's hair) and joins her among the homesteaders.  Of course they're going to end up together, but not before several very un-comedic incidents.  It starts with a posse of homesteaders going to kill Bean, but Cole rushes ahead and warns Bean and thwarts them, then convinces Bean to be more of a real judge for all and remove the cattle from the valley.  This leads to a successful harvest for the homesteaders, but as they're celebrating, Bean and his cronies set fire to crops and houses and the homesteaders lose everything (including Jane Ellen's father).  She is convinced that Cole was part of the plot, and that removing the cattle was just to protect them from the fires.  Cole rides off to Vinegaroon only to discover it has been renamed "Langtry" in honor of Jersey Lily, who is coming to the local city (I can't remember the name - it might have been made up).  Cole, who has earlier given Bean a lock of Jane Ellen's hair (the scene where he snips it is very funny) claiming it is Langtry's, uses it to force a confession out of him about the firestarting, and then announces he's going to that city to get a warrant for Bean's arrest.  Bean is undeterred, determined to see Lily, and in fact sends someone ahead to buy up all the tickets to her show, only keeping one for himself, and rides into town in a posse, dressed in his full Confederate uniform, complete with sword.  There follows a shootout in the Opera House

where Bean is mortally wounded by Cole, but Cole carries him to meet Lily before he dies.
As I said, strange film.  Cooper is said not to have liked it, at first because he knew that Brennan would steal the movie (but they got on so well that they made several pictures together later), and second because "You can't make a Western without a gunfight" (maybe the shootout in the opera house was a late addition).  It's definitely watchable, although Brennan's performance has clearly been mimicked so many times that it appears cliched.  The funny bits (the hair snipping, and a scene where Bean and the usher argue about which seat he's supposed to sit in, in the totally empty theater) are genuinely funny, and the scenes in the fire genuinely gripping, and Gary Cooper is Clint Eastwood before Clint Eastwood was Clint Eastwood.