Badlands of Dakota Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		3.5
Audio		3.5
Extras		1.0
Overall		3.5

Badlands of Dakota Blu-ray Movie Review

France's Farmer.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman March 8, 2021

There was a time, not so very long ago in the grand scheme of things, when home video titles tended to be only mainstream hits for the most part, and those of us with an interest in cult films and/or cult stars had to resort to all sorts of connection making to get (typically VHS) copies of whatever we were in search of. Some regular readers of my reviews may already know of my long fascination with Frances Farmer, and in both the pre- internet era and the early, nascent days of the world wide web, Farmer's fifteen feature films were well nigh impossible to find. Only very occasionally would they even turn up on cable television, though I still cherish memories of rising at some ungodly hour on the west coast to catch a broadcast of Farmer's only Technicolor film, 1937's Ebb Tide, when it was broadcast on TBS at what was probably an incrementally more reasonable 7 or 8 a.m. east coast time. Getting personal copies of Farmer's films frankly cost me an arm and a leg back in the day, and for many of her rarer films, I had to resort to a video search service which charged me literally hundreds of dollars — for each film. Luckily, things slowly started to improve, with some of Farmer's better known films like Rhythm on the Range, Come and Get It, The Toast of New York and Son of Fury: The Story of Benjamin Blake first coming out on VHS, and then on DVD. I've been pitching a Farmer Blu- ray collection to any number of labels over the years, and while that dream may not yet have been realized, French label Movinside is offering the goofily enjoyable 1941 Universal western Badlands of Dakota on Blu-ray, which features a kind of gobsmacking cast, including Farmer as a rather elegant if admittedly butch Calamity Jane.

Badlands of Dakota could well be a cult star lover's kind of western, even if the western idiom is not particularly that cult star lover's favorite genre. Universal seemed to want to stuff as many of its up and coming newbies with a glut of great character actors into this enterprise, and so Robert Stack and Ann Rutherford are on hand as lovers Jim Holliday and Anne Grayson, with Broderick Crawford as Jim's brother Bob, who has a thing for Farmer's Calamity Jane. Richard Dix portrays Wild Bill Hickock, Addison Richards is General George Custer, Lon Chaney, Jr. is one of the bad guys named Jack McCall, and the supporting cast has such familiar faces as Hugh Herbert, Andy Devine and Fuzzy Knight. What's not to love?, despite some reported later comments from Stack about how "forgettable" the film was.

By 1941, Farmer was in a kind of precarious position, having returned to Hollywood after some bad experiences on Broadway. That said, in fact Badlands of Dakota was first advertised in some trade papers under the title Calamity Jane, with Farmer's name above the title with that all important (for career purposes) "as" attached, which suggests this might have been a comeback opportunity that somehow got wrestled away from her for some reason. Her most frequent directorial collaborator, Alfred E. Green, mounts the proceedings with a kind of stolid workmanship in terms of framings and action moments, but the film is chock full of really interesting performances, and some of the almost physically violent interchanges between Farmer and Crawford really bristle with enormous emotional energy. It's also easy to tell that Green must have had a soft spot for Farmer, for there are several gauzy, soft focus shots of her in close-up, despite the fact that she's playing the supposedly rough and tumble, tomboyish Calamity Jane.

It is in fact the dysfunctional relationship between Jane and Bob that gives this film its real power, with the more "traditional" pairing of Jim and Anne coming off as downright bland by comparison. The film has a number of amusing bits thrown in, with some singing and dancing, and some engaging vignettes with Herbert as the town barkeep. Some of the ethnic portrayals may rub PC types the wrong way, but the film has a sweetness of heart despite some of its more hardscrabble characters that keeps things relatively light and enjoyable. This would prove to be Farmer's most prominent screen role of 1941, though she did film her great supporting role in Son of Fury in the waning days of that year, even though the film wasn't officially released until 1942. Though she was announced as a co-star of Paramount's Take a Letter, Darling in 1942, and even some later efforts like Budd Schulberg's Mexican effort Five Were Chosen, fate was conspiring against the actress and she wouldn't make another screen appearance until 1958's The Party Crashers.

Badlands of Dakota Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Badlands of Dakota is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Movinside with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.36:1. The disc boots to a Universal masthead (and there's a Universal logo on the back cover), which suggests the studio was involved in this release in some way. I was a bit worried this might be more of a public domain offering, but while there is some recurrent age related wear and tear here (as can pretty easily be made out in some of the screenshots accompanying this review), this is on the whole a rather nice looking transfer. An archive copy the UCLA holds that was shared with me many years ago may not have had the same level of damage that this version has, but this version has the same general levels of detail and secure contrast that the UCLA archival version does. Fine detail is often quite appealing, highlighting things like the herringbone pattern on some clothing or even some flyaway hair on Calamity Jane's impeccably styled do. It's obvious that some montages use a variety of stock footage, and grain and clarity fluctuate pretty widely in these sequences.

Note: The disc is labeled Region B, but the main menu booted fine and the feature film played without problem on my Region A player. See below in the supplements section for more information in this regard.

Badlands of Dakota Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Badlands of Dakota features an LPCM 2.0 Mono track in the original English. I'm not sure if the two channel rendering of this track contributes to this effect, but there's a just slightly "phase-y" sound here, with a kind of reverberant low end that is particularly noticeable in some of the deeper voices (including Farmer, in case you've never heard her) and effects work. Some music can come close to distortion, but never quite tips over into actual problem territory. There are occasional pops and crackling than can be heard. Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly throughout. This French disc understandably is authored to default to French subtitles (see screenshot 11), but they're optional and can be removed.

Badlands of Dakota Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Martha Jane, James, George et les autres (HD; 24:28) is an interesting interview with a guy named iac, who is evidently a painter of western landscapes, but who provides biographical data on a number of the film's stars and director Green. In French with no English subtitles available.

Note: The supplement is in 60i and does require either a Region B or Region Free player.

Badlands of Dakota Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

There are some undeniably outmoded depictions in Badlands of Dakota, but the film has a really fascinating cast, all of whom do memorable work. Fans of Doris Day's musical version of Calamity Jane, obviously made with Annie Get Your Gun in mind, may find Frances Farmer's take on the character appealing in a totally different way. The near abusive sizzle between Crawford and Farmer gives this film a really interesting, almost pathological, undertone. Video and audio encounter a few obstacles along the way, but considering the rarity of this film, the results are really rather admirable. Recommended.