Law and Order (1953 remake)

Law and Order is a 1953 remake of the extraordinarily dark 1932 western of the same name. Walter Huston played the lead rôle in the 1932 version while Ronald Reagan plays the lead in the remake.

Both movies are based on W.R. Burnett’s novel Saint Johnson. Nathan Juran directed the remake.

Frame Johnson (Reagan) and his brother Luther (Alex Nicol) and Jimmy (Russell Johnson) have left Tombstone and headed to Cottonwood. Frame is a famous lawman but he’s had enough of that life. He’s bought a ranch. He wants to settle down.

Cottonwood is just as exciting, and just as lawless as Tombstone in its worst days. The corrupt and crooked Kurt Durling (Preston Foster), his son Frank (Dennis Weaver) and their cronies run the town, helped by crooked sheriff Fin Elder (Barry Kelley), run the town for their own benefit. Judge Williams (Richard Garrick) wants Frame to accept an appointment as Marshal. The judge wants the town cleaned up. Frame is interested. He just wants a quiet life.

Of course he’s not going to get that quiet life and eventually he has to accept the job as Marshal.

Frame has a master plan to clean up crime. He’s going to ban the carrying of guns.

Of course that doesn’t work out quite the way he’d hoped. There are further shootings. And Frame’s brothers get themselves in a jam.

You feel that you know where this story is going and of course you’re right.

The 1932 version of Law and Order is a fascinating movie with an unconventional hero with unusual motivations and it’s one of the most interesting of all westerns. It has its own unique flavour. What the writers on the ’53 version have done is pretty clever. They’ve taken a really interesting and original story and they’ve ruthlessly removed every single feature that made the original version so interesting. They’ve turned the story into a stock-standard B-western without a trace of originality. And they’ve turned Frame Johnson into an utterly conventional western cliché.

Their genius doesn’t stop there. They’ve taken a story which unsettles us because we really don’t know how it’s going to play out and they’ve turned it into a story in which every plot twist is totally predictable and clumsily telegraphed.

The problems with the remake don’t end there. Ronald Reagan’s performance is quite competent but he’s no Walter Huston. He just doesn’t manage to get us really invested in his character. It’s not entirely his fault. The script doesn’t give him anything interesting to work with.

I don’t entirely blame the writers. I assume that the assignment they were given was to turn the movie into a bland innocuous B-movie.

The basic story outline is pretty similar to the original. The changes that have been made were probably just what the producers wanted. The changes must have seemed like things that wold make the movie a safer commercial property. They’ve added a love interest for Frame - glamorous saloon keeper Jeannie (Dorothy Malone). They’ve made the characters’ motivations straightforward rather than complex and ambiguous. They’ve added a few touches of unnecessary comic relief.

The 1932 version has a brilliant and powerful ending. The ending of the 1953 version can be pretty much predicted once you’re five minutes into the movie.

Prior to this I’d only seen Ronald Reagan in the 1930s Brass Bancroft spy B-movies, which are actually very good (Secret Service of the Air is highly recommended) and as a villain in the 1964 version of The Killers (in which he’s excellent). In Law and Order he’s at best adequate.

I’m a Dorothy Malone fan but in this movie she doesn’t get a single decent scene or a single decent line.

The 1953 movie is not really a bad movie. It’s competently made but just very average. The 1932 version is a great movie. The ’53 version is moderately entertaining but routine. Seen on its own it’s OK if very undemanding entertaining. When compared to the ’32 version it’s feeble and uninteresting and very disappointing.

It once again goes to prove that you should never remake a great movie.

I picked up the original 1932 version of this movie in a French DVD release from Sidonis. This 1953 remake is included as a bonus disc. Both movies are presented in English. Both movies get good transfers.

I've also reviewed the original Law and Order (1932).