Queen Barbara

Jeff Young (or Younger) (Barry Sullivan) is on his way to Rock Creek, when he meets Lucy Lee (Mary Murphy), who's headed there as well to sell her cattle. When Jeff prevents Lucy from being raped by The Sundance Kid (Scott Brady) the two continue to the town together. Once there, Jeff gets a job with Kit Banion (Barbara Stanwyck), at her saloon The Maverick Queen (1956). Kit has been having an affair with Sundance, but is sick of his vulgarity, and finds Jeff to be a much more appealing man. However, Jeff's eagerness to meet the Hole in the Wall Gang arouses her suspicions.

We've already ascertained that Barbara Stanwyck can do anything, but Ms. Stanwyck is the perfect Western actress. She looks like she knows how to handle a gun, she looks like a horsewoman, she won't let anyone - man or woman - run her down. So we were really looking forward to this film. Well, we were wrong. The Maverick Queen is a pretty awful movie. And it's not that Ms. Stanwyck is bad in it - she's actually great. But she's got precious little to work with, and the rest of the cast is inferior at best. Ms. Stanwyck performed her own stunts in the film, by the way (TCM article)

I've previously mentioned my antipathy towards Barry Sullivan, and this movie is case in point as to why I don't like him. He plays Jeff totally flat - no emotion, and little reaction. He's got two beautiful women in love with him, and he can't even muster a smile. It's hard to believe that a woman as dynamic as Kit could fall in love with this nonentity, and Mr. Sullivan's performance doesn't help you to believe it.

Equally dull is the performance of Mary Murphy as Lucy. She's a pretty woman, but she is banal. She's supposed to be gutsy enough that she's willing to run a herd of cattle to market for sale, but you wouldn't believe it from her performance. Her career was not standout - she's remembered today for her performance in The Wild One (1953) - but does anyone remember any actor but Brando in that film? She did quite a bit of television, retiring in 1975.  She died in 2011 at the age of 80.

Scott Brady tries to play his role by not bathing and scowling a lot. Again, why in heavens a woman with the class of Kit would want to sleep with this guy is a mystery. This is not the Sundance Kid as played by Robert Redford thirteen years later; this is a nasty, mean, and crude individual with no class whatsoever.

It's always nice to see Jim Davis (Jeff Younger). He's possibly the only one of the bad guys with any kind of personality, and he's only in a couple of scene. Now, if Kit had been smitten with him, we might have believed it, but the casting department flubbed that one.

The script was based on a Zane Grey novel, which was a motivation for Ms. Stanwyck's appearance - she was a fan, and in fact made several appearances on the television series Zane Grey Theatre (hosted by and often starring Dick Powell). But, compare some of her TV scripts to this, and you'll see a big difference in quality. The tight television format was far more entertaining than this muddle.

With fight scenes that are almost laughable, and music by Victor Young (AFI catalog) that is trying to emulate High Noon, this one is a major disappointment. We will leave you with the film's opening, and a suggestion that you try a different Stanwyck western. We'll have a really good one for you shortly.