zardoz-13 This turn-of-the-century John Wayne adventure epic, "The Flame of the Barbary Coast," amounts to little more than a thoroughly average but nevertheless entertaining saga about gambling in San Franciso and the rivalry between the hero and the villain for the affections of the eponymous heroine who towers about all else as the star singing attraction. No, this isn't a standard western. Most of the action transpires inside buildings. Wayne wears a Stetson and plays a cattle rancher from Montana. The heroine, Ann Dvorak of "G-Men," is the girl that everybody yearns for and wants to see. She inserts herself between John Wayne and Joseph Schildraut and the Borden Chase screenplay depicts Wayne as a fish-out-of-water, or perhaps a steer-off-the-range, who butts heads with an urbane, satorially elegant casino owner. "The Flame of the Barbary Coast" could qualify as a romance because both the hero and the villain vye for her affection. Director Joe Kane never lets things get out of hand with a 92-minute running time, and the limited use of special effects to depict the San Francisco earthquake of 1906 was pretty cool. This is as much a tale of initiation as it is an empire building yarn. Long-time John Wayne stock company character actor Paul Fix plays a villain, while William Frawley is cast as a close friend of our hero who learns the basics of poker.

ianlouisiana If you want to see John Wayne paddling in the Pacific Ocean with his boots off this may be your only chance.Pleasingly named "Duke" in "Flame of the Barbary Coast",Mr Wayne cuts a fine figure amongst the stone gamblers in the casinos as he goes to the big city to collect a debt from saloon owner Mr J.Schildkraut(looking unnervingly like TV's Sherlock Holmes Jeremy Brett).The two men turn out to be rivals for the hand of Miss A.Dvorak as chanteuse Flaxen Tarry. This is a movie full of energy and movement.As Duke and Flaxen tour the gambling houses,winning - courtesy of her preventing the croupiers from cheating - a large wedge, they are followed by an increasingly noisy entourage like a conga line,bustling with excitement.Arriving back at Schildkraut's casino,Duke flashes his cash and buys everybody drinks. The next morning he ill - advisedly accepts Schildkraut's challenge to a game of Stud and is cleared out,left only with a return ticket to Montana.Undeterred and in lurve with Flaxen,he takes poker lessons,sells up his herd and - with his card - coach on hand - returns to San Francisco to win his money back and his gal at the same time. Republic make a surprisingly good fist of the 1906 earthquake,Flaxen is photogenically injured and Duke takes her off to Montana to get the good country air into her lungs.Mr Schildkraut is surprisingly sporting about the whole thing.Put this way,the movie might seem a little bit frothy and trivial,but it is given body by the performances of the leads,Mr Schildkraut in particular in a role that might have been written for Clark Gable,a charismatic mixture of charm and menace. Perhaps not writ large on Mr Wayne's C.V.,"Flame of the Barbary Coast" is nevertheless an enjoyable,well - made and worthwhile movie.In it one can see the nascent wry,stubborn and sometimes wrong - headed persona Mr Wayne was develop so successfully and use for the rest of his career.

Steve Haynie Before watching Flame Of Barbary Coast I never read the description on the back cover of the DVD case. It mentions the San Francisco earthquake of 1906. Fortunately I was aware of some of the history of that earthquake, so I was picking up the clues given throughout the movie. All I cared about before watching the movie was that it was a western with John Wayne in it. The movie is a "late" western in that it takes place as the wild west had been tamed and the 20th Century was becoming an entirely different reality.The plot was okay, but a little thin. A Montana rancher goes to the big city, finds himself played out as a sucker, and returns to conquer the same people who made a fool out of him. Duke Fergus (John Wayne) takes lessons from his professional gambler friend, Wolf Wylie (William Frawley), and ends up beating the professional gamblers in their own casinos. Even for John Wayne this is quite amazing. Added to that is his love interest in Flaxen (Ann Dvorak), known as "the Flame of the Barbary Coast", who apparently has teased virtually every powerful man in town. At the time of the story she is tied to Tito Morrell (Joseph Schildkraut), the most successful and notorious of the gambling house bosses.I liked the way Joseph Schildkraut played the classy, but devious, casino owner, Tito Morrell. His character hinted at aristocratic old world lineage and his determination to maintain a level of sophistication despite his present reputation. Tito's criminal side is never shown, only implied. John Wayne's character, Duke, never came across as simple. He loved his modest environment at his ranch in Montana, but he had a business sense and some integrity. Ann Dvorak's Flaxen is the character that seems a bit odd. If she has such a reputation for being the unobtainable prize, why do so many still want her? She really does smile her way through everything, too. It would have been really nice if she got one of those famous John Wayne spankings.Establishing a specific time was done gradually and then deliberately. The house Tito provides for Flaxen is definitely built in an elaborate turn of the century European-influenced style that would not have existed thirty years earlier. Upon arriving in San Francisco there were many electric lights. A bathroom with running water is shown. Eventually a specific date in January of 1906 is mentioned, and later it is mentioned that April of the same year has arrived. Although everyone is moving on foot or in a horse drawn carriage, an automobile appears in one scene. The time placement was subtle in the beginning and made perfectly clear as it became more important to the plot.I expected the climax of the movie to be the famous San Francisco earthquake. There really were explosions and gas fires from ruptured natural gas lines. Firefighters are shown in the movie running out of water because of broken water mains just as the real firefighters did. It is even mentioned that looters would be shot, as they really were. The catalyst that brought about changes in San Francisco set up the final scenes for the main characters. The true nature of everyone is shown in a final showdown between Duke, Tito, and Flaxen.I liked Flame Of Barbary Coast. My only complaint is that the movie makes the Barbary Coast seem to be the most important part of San Francisco, and it is the only part of the city that is shown. The sets were elaborate and the actors were good. It cannot be called a gangster movie even though it has crime bosses. Over all it was more of a drama than a western, but it was worth watching.

David Atfield Republic Pictures attempt at a prestige picture, for their tenth anniversary, is a dismal failure. In 1936 MGM made a marvellous film called "San Francisco" about a saloon owner and his romance with a singer set around the 1906 earthquake. In 1945 "Flame of Barbary Coast" takes the same characters and even the same setting. But this time instead of Clark Gable and Jeanette MacDonald, we have John Wayne and Ann Dvorak. And instead of spectacular special effects for the earthquake we have one chandelier fall down and lots of stock footage of fires!Why did they do this? Wayne is awful playing a character called "Duke", but he is "Olivier" in comparison to the woeful Dvorak. Someone seems to have told Miss Dvorak to smile - and she does throughout the movie, whether she's facing an earthquake, a duel between her lovers, or permanent paralysis. And she couldn't sing, but she is given several dreary and hideously choreographed numbers. Poor Joseph Schildkraut is there as the baddie and provides a couple of moments of wry humour.Mind you how could anyone act with this appalling dialogue. For example:After the earthquake Wayne meets Schildkraut in the tent city that has been set up. Both love Dvorak but she has been hurt and has been asking for Schildkraut. Wayne fills him in on her condition.Wayne: She's paralyzed.Pause. Music swells.Schildkraut: It's gonna be tough.Some cliched camera angles (the stage seen through the holes in the wheel of fortune) are used ad nauseum and the plot makes no sense at all. Wayne, for example, runs for mayor and gets into a massive fight with Schildkraut's boys who are destroying ballot papers. Having finally regained the correct tally sheets that elect him mayor he announces he is going back to Montana! Dvorak takes Wayne on a tour of all the gambling houses and, despite the protests of all the owners, only has to wink at the dealers for them to allow Wayne to win $16,000. And the dealers aren't even reprimanded.What was everyone thinking? Or weren't they?