Frenchie (1950)

★ 5.7 1h 21m IMDb
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Frenchie Fontaine sells her successful business in New Orleans to come West. Her reason? Find the men who killed her father, Frank Dawson. But she only knows one of the two who did and she's determined to find out the other.

Frenchie

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Cast

Joel McCrea
Joel McCrea as Sheriff Tom Banning Died 1990 · South Pasadena, California, USA Joel Albert McCrea (November 5, 1905 – October 20, 1990) was an American actor whose career spanned a wide variety of genres over almost five decades, including comedy, drama, romance, thrillers, adve...
Shelley Winters
Shelley Winters as Frenchie Fontaine Died 2006 · St. Louis, Missouri, USA Shelley Winters (born Shirley Schrift; August 18, 1920 – January 14, 2006) was an American actress whose career spanned almost six decades. She appeared in numerous films, and won Academy Awards for T...
Paul Kelly
Paul Kelly as Pete Lambert Died 1956 · Brooklyn, New York, USA Paul Michael Kelly was an American child actor who later as an adult became a stage, film, and television actor..
Elsa Lanchester
Elsa Lanchester as Countess Died 1986 · Lewisham, London, England, UK Elsa Sullivan Lanchester (October 28, 1902 – December 26, 1986) was a British actress with a long career in theatre, film and television and former dancer. Lanchester studied dance as a child and af...
Marie Windsor
Marie Windsor as Diane Gorman Died 2000 · Marysvale, Utah, USA From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Marie Windsor (born Emily Marie Bertelsen; December 11, 1919 – December 10, 2000) was an actress known as "The Queen of the Bs" because she appeared in so many B...
John Russell
John Russell as Lance Cole Died 1991 · Los Angeles, California, USA From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. John Lawrence Russell was an American actor, and World War II veteran, most noted for playing Marshal Dan Troop in the successful ABC western television series...

Audience Reviews

John Chard 7/10 Nov 06, 2019
The Scarlet Angel!

Frenchie is directed by Louis King and written by Oscar Brodney. It stars Joel McCrea, Shelley Winters, Paul Kelly, Elsa Lanchester, Marie Windsor and John Russell. Music is by Hans Salter and cinematography by Maury Gertsman.

Frenchie Fontaine (Winters) has sold her successful business in New Orleans and has come West to prosper further - or does she have an ulterior motive?

In spite of some on line sources proclaiming this to be a remake of "Destry", which is a considerably better film as it happens, it really isn't a copy. The similarities are for sure there, but it is its own entity and deserves to at least be judged as such.

We have a wonderful tried and trusted Western genre narrative thread where someone is out for revenge, only in this instance it's a foxy lady. Male suitors get in a tizzy about garnering her attentions, the bad guys potter about trying to avert suspicion - but do so badly, and there's some moral outrage from townsfolk who object to Frenchie's forthright money making success. While of course there's some truths to be born out - can open and worms everywhere type of thing.

It's not very strong on the page, that's for sure, but there's plenty in the production to enjoy regardless. Cast are good value for the roles as written, not that there's any great chemistry between Winters and McCrea, but as she snake hips her way around town, and he fronts up with cool as a cucumber swagger, it's easy to just buy into the frothery of it all. The dialogue is often deliciously suggestive, the costuming is high quality (Yvonne Wood), and when action decides to make an appearance it's competently staged.

Yet it's the cinematography that is the pic's best aspect. Maury Gertsman (Comanche Territory) is not a name that jumps off the page for cinematography notices, he definitely was a better purveyor in monochrome, but his Technicolor filters are excellent here. Then there's the gorgeous locales, where Buttermilk Country/Inyo National Forest please the eyes so much you wonder why these weren't used more often through the Western genre heydays?

As a serious Western genre fan I wouldn't be comfortable putting this forward as a must see for like minded souls. However, for McCrea and Winters fans - and actually John Russell ones as well - this is no waste of time. 6/10

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