+2
I watched Dodge City last night. The funny thing is I didn't really like the story all that much, but then I watched a mini documentary on the importance on the film and what Michael Curtiz achieved in it...and surprise! I got a whole new outlook on the film. When you have noted film historians admiring a film, it's easy to see why they admired the film and start appreciation it more than I had.
Dodge City, doesn't have a memorable script and it seems run of the mill with shoot outs, bar fights, train fights and horse riding stunts that we've seen a million times before ...only as the film historians pointed out, Dodge City wasn't clichéd, as it pioneered all those, now, common place story ideas.
I learned something else, that in the 30s westerns were considered pop corn b-movies mainly for kids...then John Ford changed things with Stagecoach. All of a sudden Hollywood wanted to make big budget A-movies with there biggest stars. And Dodge City is big! Technicolor in 1939 was still something new and expensive, so the studios didn't make many Technicolor films. Add to that big cost, you have Michael Curtiz going big! in the scenes with the biggest bar fight I've ever seen. I mean look at all those extras, that's a big scene. And outdoors he has a lot of on location big shots with grand action. Today we take this all in stride, but in 1939 Dodge City was something special.