The Oklahoman (1957)

There is no earthly reason to watch this movie unless you are a huge fan or relative of one of the filmmakers/actors. It is completely inoffensive with nothing wrong and nothing right about it. It is very predictable. It has very little action. It is very boring. For example, none of the Indians were bad guys, and most of the townsfolk liked the Indians. Nice in real life, not so good for movies. I couldn't wait for it to be over.Three small note-worthy things: (1) Brad Dexter has a pretty big part as the heavy. He is the one actor amongst "The Magnificent Seven," who remained pretty unknown.; (2) I was very impressed with the gorgeous beauty and charisma of the actress who played McCrea's good neighbor on the wagon train, who continued on to California, leaving McCrea in Oklahoma. She isn't credited in the movie. I looked her up, Diane Brewster. Yummy! Too bad she didn't star as a female lead! and (3) if they were so offended by the smutty rumors about the Gloria Talbott character, they shouldn't have let her run around in that tight red dress.

It's the kind of movie that's most satisfying when it's late at night, everyone else has gone to bed, even the dog is dozing, and you find you've been on page twelve of "Buddenbrooks" for an hour. You need SOMETHING easy and reassuring -- and this is it.There's no question of who is good and who is bad. Joel McCrea is the doctor who wears a string tie and a vest and settles in a small town. (Guess whether he's "good" or "bad".) He's developing a nice relationship with the sympatico Barbara Hale, and he gets along with the local Indians. They know they've lost the battle for the frontier and are at ease with it. They've become farmers but remain proud and loyal. Doc McCrea hires one of them, the ingenuous but seductive Gloria Talbott as a housekeeper.Well, Gloria Talbott looks just great. She has big wet eyes and a thin mouth and an unwitting sensual presence. Okay, her make up is a little dark and she wears a necklace of bear claws so we don't forget, but so what? She falls in love with Doc McCrea and this complicates his relationship with Barbara Hale. The Doc, you will notice, has two sexy babes trying to get close to him. That's one of the advantages of being a doctor. All the women in town fall in love with you.But then we have Brad Dexter and his gang. They cuss the Indians out, make offensive remarks about McCrea and his live-in housekeeper. The townspeople, as represented by Ray Teal, are split in their attitudes. None of them likes Brad Dexter, just as no one liked Liberty Valence, but half the citizens are afraid to stand up to him.Dexter's brother assaults Talbott's father and is killed in self defense. The conflict becomes not just racial but personal. I don't want to give much more of the plot away. You can probably guess the outcome anyway.Hollywood is often criticized for its treatment of the American Indian, and I expect that on the whole, movies are an insult to their tribal societies. But the simple casting of Indians as fulsome savages was probably more common in earlier movies -- and cheaper ones. By the 1950s, the presentation of Indians was more sympathetic than otherwise. The dialog deals fairly explicitly with their position too, and should get some extra points for its honesty in doing so.But the movie itself is nothing special. It's just a better hypnotic than chloral hydrate or Nyquil.

This is a nice easy to take B western that Joel McCrea settled into doing in his later years. The Oklahoman opens with McCrea's wife dying in childbirth and McCrea making a decision to leave the wagon train he's on and settle in what was then known as Indian Territory.Fast forward about seven years. McCrea, who is a doctor, has settled with his seven year old daughter in a small town in Oklahoma. He's got two girls interested in him, Barbara Hale who is rancher's widow, and Gloria Talbott a young Indian girl who babysits his daughter. Talbott's family has problems from the local town bully played with appropriate menace by Brad Dexter. He wants the land that Talbott's father Michael Pate owns and Dexter ain't too squeamish about his methods. Why does Dexter want the land and who will McCrea wind up with in the end? For those questions watch The Oklahoman.Fans of Joel McCrea and westerns in general will like this.

A doctor's wife dies during childbirth on a trip to a new life in the west. The doctor(Joel McCrea) decides to make a home for his young daughter in the middle of Oklahoma Territory. A pretty young Indian girl(Gloria Talbot)moves in to help take care of the child. Of course, the square shooting doctor is forced to defend her honor.A nice, wholesome cowboy drama set in 1870's Oklahoma Territory. A greedy rancher wants to claim oil discovered on an Indian's land. Interesting and easy to watch. Talbot, a familiar face in TV westerns, is equally attractive on the big screen. Barbara Hale plays the doctor's love interest. And Brad Dexter is the villain.