[7]

Errol Flynn tries a Western on for size (his first of eight), seizing the sheriff’s badge and cleaning up the lawless town of Dodge City. He’s with his usual leading lady, Olivia de Havilland, and his usual sidekick, Alan Hale, all under Michael Curtiz’s sure-handed direction. (In fact, there’s a scene in the saloon where rival groups compete in song, a scene Curtiz would reenact a few years later in Casablanca.) Dodge City was one of the first westerns to get an A-level cast and crew. Shot in vivid technicolor, boasting the biggest bar room brawl in Hollywood history and a flaming train climax, the film was a crowd pleaser and a trend setter, one of the westerns to which all future westerns would be compared. Mel Brooks would later parody the film in Blazing Saddles. With Ann Sheridan and Bruce Cabot.