Calamity Jane and Sam Bass (1949)

Yvonne de Carlo has to share Howard Duff's(Sam Bass) romantic interest with Dorothy Hart(Kathy Egan) in this Technicolor 'B' western, directed by the talented 'B' picture specialist George Sherman. Obviously, Dorothy was characterized as 'the good girl', while Yvonne, as Calamity Jane, was characterized as 'the bad girl'. Both fell in love with the handsome, but dirt poor, Bass almost immediately. Calamity more dominates the 2nd half, while Kathy is more influential in the first half. Director Sherman ordered some great close-ups of Yvonne's face, especially toward the end. For a more fun western costarring Yvonne, I recommend "Frontier Gal". Both these films are currently available at YouTube. I disagree with the paragraph under 'Trivia' at this site, which claims that there is little historically accurate information about Bass in this film. The inclusion of the 2 women is the greatest fictional component. As mentioned in the film, Bass was raised on an Indiana farm, and gradually made his way south and west, finally to Denton, TX. He did work for Sheriff Will Egan on his ranch, saved his money and bought an excellent race horse, named 'the Denton Mare'. He won some races with her and was skilled in other bets on horses. Later, he did get into robbing stages, trains, and banks. The dramatized train robbery at Big Spring Station closely duplicates the details of what actually happened, including the wood boxes holding a fortune in gold coins. His fatal attempt at robbing the Round Rock bank is also dramatized.Howard Keel, as Bass, doesn't present the sort of charisma a John Wayne or Gary Cooper would, but he does an adequate job. Yvonne makes a striking, if quite unreal, facsimile of Calamity.

This is an offbeat western ,one of the rare ones which does not have a Hollywood happy end . The screenplay features historical characters ,including Calamity Jane ,played by the wonderful Yvonne De Carlo ,who is as much at ease in the part of a Wild West girl as she is when she 's Countess of Castiglione or Mosis's wife .According to IMDb reliable source ,the two "heroes" never met in real life ,but it does not matter.In the movie,Sam is a born loser,illiterate ,deprived of his money by a wicked uncle,and a dreaming man .All he does backfires on him and even with the help of two women in love with him,he is pursued by fate .Against all odds ,he does believe his mare is still alive but the pursuit of his dream is in vain.Howard Duff 's wooden acting does not get in the way for his character becomes an outlaw by accident and most of the time,he is overtaken by events.

Calamity Jane and Sam Bass (1949)This is your typical early 50's western (with a little romance thrown in) and it stars some notable and familiar faces from the early days of TV. It's not really a bad movie, just nothing very noteworthy, except... Yvonne De Carlo is smokin' ass hot in this movie! She plays the ultimate bad girl, Calamity Jane, and makes the whole movie worth sitting through. So much so, that I'm giving it an extra couple of stars just because she eats up the scenery. Other than that, this movie hasn't much going for it. It's your typical movie western. A naive farm boy, Sam Bass (Howard Duff) comes into town riding shotgun on the stage without a penny to his name. He strikes up a friendship with the store owner, Kathy Egan (Dorothy Hart) and despite the bad first impression from her brother (and the local sheriff) Will Egan (Willard Parker) gets some farm work for the family.Sam Bass knows his horse flesh and is even able to calm a wild horse like the one Calamity Jane is racing in town. He sort of has that effect on her too. Sam Bass seems to have a lot of bad luck or makes the wrong choices in life. Things just seem to go from bad to worse, no matter how good his intentions are. When he borrows money to bet on a racehorse, Sheriff Egan kicks him out, so he gets a cattle job with Joel Collins (Lloyd Bridges). It doesn't take long before he takes on a life of crime.

This is largely an unremarkable little film, with mostly wooden performances typical of the time in which it was made, but it does show how easy it is for a man to take the wrong turning through no fault of his own, when circumstances beyond his control provide no other option.