Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		3.5
Audio		3.5
Extras		0.0
Overall		3.5

War of the Wildcats Blu-ray Movie Review

Thar's oil in them thar hills.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman April 28, 2013

It couldn’t exactly be called a gusher, but at least a trickle of films appeared in the 1940s that had oil at the center of their plots. Probably the best remembered of these is the 1940 M-G-M adventure outing Boom Town which starred Clark Gable and Spencer Tracy which proved to be one of that year’s most popular films. Actually opening the very same week that Boom Town did was a less well known Warner Brothers potboiler called Flowing Gold starring John Garfield, Frances Farmer and Pat O’Brien, which for whatever reason didn’t attract the attention of Boom Town but which did surprisingly well for Warner nonetheless. Leave it to Republic Pictures to get to the party a little late, for it wasn’t until 1943 that In Old Oklahoma (retitled War of the Wildcats for its re-release) appeared, rather clumsily melding an oil drilling scenario onto a more traditional western setup (both Boom Town and Flowing Gold had featured “contemporary” timeframes). Perhaps rather surprisingly War of the Wildcats is played for laughs, at least some of the time, and John Wayne segues quite well between these elements and his more traditional milieu of a rootin’ tootin’ guns a-blazin’ hero. While War of the Wildcats has little of the gloss and glamour of Boom Town (or even Flowing Gold, for that matter), it’s enjoyable in its own small scale way, with a colorful supporting cast and enough general mayhem erupting at regular intervals to keep action fans reasonably engaged.

John Wayne is so associated with Western or other action roles that it’s sometimes hard to remember he could do rather well in other types of roles, given good writing and directing as well as a game supporting cast. War of the Wildcats shows Wayne off at his most charming, with a surprisingly deft light comedy edge running through quite a bit of his performance. Wayne portrays Dan Somers, a strapping cowboy (you expected anything less?) who kind of stumbles into the oil business. We meet Dan when he kind of “crashes” a private train car owned by oil tycoon Jim Gardner (Albert Dekker), an impresario who just turned a perhaps lecherous eye toward Catherine Allen (Martha Scott), a would be writer who has just been more or less run out of town by a mob of outraged older women who can’t quite believe a female could have written a “scandalous” romance novel.

Gardner convinces Catherine to tag along to Gardner’s self built town of Sapulpa since Catherine, a burgeoning women’s libber decades before that idea was ever officially formulated, is out to storm the “man’s world” an experience something of life. Of course, Dan ends up tagging along, quickly becoming aware that many residents of Sapulpa are less than thrilled with Gardner’s business tactics in monopolizing the oil reserves around the town. Dan of course is right there to pick up the slack and immediately become Gardner's rival in business and love. He also becomes a stalwart defender of the local Native American population as well as perhaps unlikely former friend of President Teddy Roosevelt's.

War of the Wildcats is a fairly routine programmer, but it’s quite lively and has some great performances. Martha Scott burst upon the scene (culling a Best Actress Academy Award nomination in the process) in Thornton Wilder’s Our Town, but she too frequently was cast in supporting roles where her inherent spunk and vivacity wasn’t as readily apparent. Luckily that’s not the case in War of the Wildcats, and she creates a really wonderfully boisterous character who might be a bit on the pushy side but who is also quite easy to love, something that makes the incipient love triangle which develops between Catherine, Dan and Gardner all the more believable.

Albert Dekker was an actor who, somewhat similarly to Scott, too infrequently got to really strut his stuff in major roles. Dekker had an intriguing career and an even more intriguing death. While his years at Paramount were filled with often pretty turgid roles, he occasionally got great little films like Dr. Cyclops. Dekker tended to get cast in suave villain roles, with his turn in The Killers being one of his best remembered. Dekker served in the California State Assembly where his left leaning politics and disparagement of the anti-Communist crusades then in vogue quickly got him blacklisted. Dekker returned to his stage roots and achieved renown as Lee J. Cobb’s replacement as Willy Loman in Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman. Dekker was found handcuffed and hanged in his bathtub in the late sixties, in some accounts naked and in others wearing at least some women’s clothing, with some other odd elements found at the scene which have led some to claim the actor was murdered and did not commit suicide as the official report declares. His role here is relatively nuanced. Gardner isn't and out and out hiss worth villain, and in fact is rather charming in his own overbearing way, something that makes Catherine's indecision about which man she wants to end up with at least somewhat believable.

Also in War of the Wildcats are the always enjoyable Gabby Hayes as Dan’s comedy relief sidekick as well as future Mrs. Roy Rogers Dale Evans as a dance hall singer. Evans, another would be star who got sidelined in routine supporting roles, gets to sing and dance here and shows what a winning screen presence she could be given the right circumstances. War of the Wildcats is one of those midline films that never really approaches greatness but which manages to effortlessly entertain, buoyed by some ebullient performances which help knit together some otherwise disparate plot elements.

War of the Wildcats Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

War of the Wildcats is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Olive Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.37:1. There are some minor issues which mar this generally fine looking release, including a problematic (reissue) title card which looks like it's been sourced from a secondary element. That same issue crops up, but even worse, just slightly past the half hour mark when Scott looks into an adjoining hotel room which she's being informed belongs to Gardner. There's an insert of a two shot between Scott and the hotel owner that has to have been sourced from a badly faded print, perhaps even a 16mm one. The difference in clarity and contrast is marked, to say the least. Luckily, that shot only lasts for a few seconds, and then we're back to the generally nice looking appearance that defines the bulk of this presentation. Overall the image here is decently crisp and well defined, with very good contrast and pleasing if not overwhelming fine object detail. There's quite a bit of rear projection utilized in this feature which looks pretty ragged in high definition.

War of the Wildcats Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

War of the Wildcats' lossless DTS-HD Master Audio Mono track sounds very good overall, given the constraints of its era and the recording techniques of the time. Walter Scharf's Oscar nominated score sounds nicely boisterous and the dialogue is presented very cleanly, albeit with the expected boxiness and high frequency hiss. (The sound recording of the film also received an Oscar nomination). Fidelity is very good, and dynamic range has a few spikes courtesy of some of the action oil drilling sequences.

War of the Wildcats Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

There are no supplements on this Blu-ray disc.

War of the Wildcats Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

War of the Wildcats isn't any kind of forgotten masterpiece, but it's a perfectly serviceable programmer that really shows off its varied cast in an extremely good light. Wayne is hugely enjoyable, able to capably deal with the light comedy, romantic and (of course) action elements of the script. Scott is similarly wonderful as a really spunky heroine who's years ahead of her time. And it's fun to see Dekker in a role that isn't a lampoonish villain for a change. The supporting cast is similarly colorful, the film is an interesting (if not always successful) melding of western and oil field elements, and in typical Republic style, things never outstay their welcome. The video here has some niggling problems, but the audio is very good given reasonable expectations. Recommended.