Joe Dakota (1957)

I never made the "Bad Day at Black Rock" connection that some other reviewers mention for this film, so I had to go back and take a look at my own comments for that film. It turns out Spencer Tracy made an observation about Black Rock that went something like this - "... only just seems to me there aren't many towns like this in America, but one town like it is enough." Well, with this story, I guess there really was another town like Black Rock, going by the name of Arborville. It wasn't much of a town really, and wasn't mentioned to be in any particular state; the only thing you could assume was that it was out West somewhere.The thing about the filming that I find most curious were the handful of scenes in which characters get covered with oil. That first time with Joe Dakota (Jock Mahoney) had me jumping out of my seat - how'd they do that? I mean, Mahoney was seriously covered head to foot in some kind of black gunk, and even assuming it wasn't really oil, how did the film makers get the consistency right, and how did Mahoney keep it out of his eyes? I'm still puzzling over that.As it turns out, Mahoney's character becomes the conscience of the town of Arborville when he begins digging into the disappearance of the 'other' Joe Dakota. The story did a credible job of explaining what that was all about, leaving no loopholes for the citizens to employ once it became evident that the 'real' Joe Dakota had done his homework.Two things bothered me though. The first was the flashback scene showing the Old Indian coming to Jody Weaver's (Luana Patten) aid after she was assaulted by the unidentified attacker. He was smiling, and that didn't square with the situation. The other was during the eruption of the oil well when Joe got into the scrap with Cal Moore (Charles McGraw). Moore's tough guy henchmen (Claude Akins and Lee Van Cleef) were actually cheering for Joe! Why would that be the case? That situation just seemed to be out of synch with the story and the characters.Oh yeah, one other comment I made in my 'Black Rock' review - the Eastman Color format managed to add a modern sensibility to what might otherwise have been an out of place 1950's Western. Guess what? - this turned out to be that out of place 1950's Western.

TV's Range Rider tried his hand at big screen westerns and this one, Joe Dakota is one of them. Sad to say though that Jock Mahoney came along a bit too late to be a big screen cowboy hero. And the film while good is not anything you wouldn't see as a Gunsmoke episode.The plot is considerably borrowed from MGM's Bad Day At Black Rock, but its hero is a soft spoken Tom Destry like character. Jock Mahoney is in the title role and he comes to town looking for someone the locals only knew as 'The Old Indian'. He's disappeared now and a bunch of the locals under the supervision of town tough Charles McGraw are drilling an oil well on the Old Indian's land.Only it's not his land, it's Mahoney's land which 'the old Indian' was squatting on for Mahoney. Mahoney starts investigating, start asking questions and pretty soon the town is riled. Something McGraw hopes to use when the time comes.Mahoney does make a good cowboy hero, born a little too late to have made a career on the big screen. I remember him well as the Range Rider during my childhood years. As for 'the Old Indian' and McGraw if you've seen Bad Day At Black Rock you know how this one comes out.Such fine folks as Luana Patten, Barbara Lawrence, Paul Birch, Claude Akins and Lee Van Cleef fill out the cast. Sad Jock Mahoney came along too late to be a big screen cowboy hero.

Before there was Joe Montana(NFL quarterback), there was Joe Dakota, or rather seemingly 2 of them: friends, one an old illiterate Native American, the other a young tall handsome literate Caucasian cowpoke(Jock Mahoney). The cowpoke eventually wandered away from the ranch the 'Indian' had bought. Now, he is returning to visit his friend, upon a telegram request. The tiny nearby settlement seems deserted, except for one pretty, suspicious, young lady tending the general store. Everybody else is out on 'Indian' Joe's property, around an oil well in the making. Seems 'Indian Joe' sold his property to one of the new townies, left this region, and, almost immediately, an oil seep was discovered on this property. The whole town is now involved in converting this seep into a commercial well. Cowpoke Joe doesn't buy this story, so he wants to snoop around, talking to individuals, to try to find out what really happened. He also claims the new deed to the property is a forgery. How could this stranger know and prove that? The town people keep trying to run him off, but he keeps returning.The glaring problem with this story is that nobody here recognizes Cowpoke Joe nor he them, even though he claims he used to live here! Thus, we have to assume that all these basically ranching or town folk families moved here within the recent past. But,according to several spoken lines, that's not so! Anyway, fortunately, the storekeeper's daughter Jody(Luana Patten) is attracted to Joe, although still suspicious, and becomes his only sometimes friend here. How is it that they both claim to have been reclusive 'Indian' Joe's only friend for many years, yet don't know each other??Rather reminds me of the older B&W John Wayne-starring "Tall in the Saddle", where Wayne shows up in a town he's never been to, and goes to work solving a murder mystery involving his uncle. The present film was shot in vivid Eastmancolor, and the girl is a shy indoor type, not the tomboy wildcat in that film.This film also has a bit of the older epic oil western 'Tulsa' in it, although it certainly isn't meant to be an epic.Unlike those films, this story includes an example of shoot-from-the-hip vigilantism gone bad, rather like in "The Oxbow Incident".The film includes a number of familiar-looking character actors, such as Claude Atkins, Charles McGraw, Tony Caruso, Lee Van Cleef, and Paul Birch, who mostly provide an element of toughness, with occasional frontier humor. I thought the theme song "The Flower of San Antone", which Jock whistles or sings several times, was catchy. No clue what state this story supposedly took place in. This song suggests maybe Texas, which did have plenty of oil. The film was shot in southern CA.Poor Cowpoke Joe falls into a pool of oil twice: once near the beginning and again near the end. This second one involves a fight in the oil pool from a gusher, part of the climax to the story. Much reminds me of the slugfest in a very muddy pool at the end of the later "The Scalphunters", and also in "McClintock!". After his first unplanned public oil bath, he has to walk back to town looking like a black-faced minstrel who badly overdid his makeup. So, he takes a musical soapy bath in the town watering trough after Jody refuses to let him use the town indoor bathing facility. Nobody is pleased.Unraveling the mystery of 'Indian' Joe and his land is a bit complicated, as Cowpoke Joe has to find and put together several disparate pieces of information, including the results of a sort of crude psychoanalysis of Jody. I will let you see the film(probably on Encore Westerns at present) to find out the details. The rather surprising ending also I won't reveal. Firearms are occasionally brandished, but only one shot is fired and nobody dies. This is no shoot-em-up western! It's mostly a very slow paced film, until the last 10-15 minutes, featuring mostly talking rather than action. If that bores you, you might want to pass on this film. Despite the gaping holes in the plot, soft-spoken, laconic, but determined, Joe Dakota makes a likable hero, and I enjoyed the film.This was my introduction to Jock. His Hollywood and TV careers mostly consisted of stunt double work, supporting and starring roles in minor westerns, and supporting and starring roles in several Tarzan films.

A mysterious stranger (Mahoney) comes to town asking after the whereabouts of former resident Joe Dakota. Townsfolk are not very obliging, which seems to have something to do with a recently drilled oil well and who owns it.The movie year 1957 was saturated with westerns. This one tries to be different, and largely succeeds. Notice that no one—not even arch-movie villains Van Cleef or Akins—sports a six- gun. And, unless I missed something, not even a single shot is fired. Add to that an oil well, of all things, plus a woebegone little prairie town that's definitely not a studio set, and you've got a different looking western.Then too, the first part manages some pretty good low-key humor; at the same time, Mahoney gets an oil bath, courtesy the townsfolk, that leaves him looking like a human inkblot. For a western, however, there's not much action and none of the usual suspense of good-guy vs. bad-guy showdown. And truth be told, the basic plot is borrowed from 1955's mega-hit Bad Day at Black Rock. But the writers have added enough clever twists and turns to keep the viewer entertained. All in all, it's an interesting, if not very intense, little western.(In passing—I checked to see if the oil well was an anachronism for this time period. It's not. The first well was drilled in Pennsylvania in 1859. Also, note that William Tallman who played the DA on the old Perry Mason series is one of the two screenwriters here.)