This modest feature is mainly interesting for figuring out why its three stars teetered just below the A-list*, and for an unusual lack of dramatic incident in its first half. It’s like everyone’s on holiday in SoCal horse country. Rather pleasant. It’s midway in before life & death melodrama, along with romantic tangles kick in. Pity journeyman director James V. Kern, out of his depth in both halves. But for as long as nothing much is happening (other than a scare for Alexis Smith’s kid sister at the beach), horse rancher/veterinarian Ronald Reagan, visiting novelist pal Zachary Scott and pants-wearing/horse breeder neighbor Alexis Smith play a friendly game of catch and release visits to figure out which two parties make the natural couple. Stephen Longstreet, scripting from his own novel, happy just to observe. Then anthrax comes to cattle country, and melodrama breaks out. Stupidity, too; one of those plots where you’re not allowed to make a simple explanation if you want to keep the plot going. So Doc Reagan may be saving the entire livestock population of the area and working on an experimental serum, but Smith isn’t told of his heroics. All she knows is he didn’t show up for her sick show horse. It gives Scott an opportunity to move in, leaving Reagan with a clinging married gal he once dabbled with. It’ll take a (near) fatal diagnosis to sort this one out. A shame, that directionless first half was something singular for ‘40s Warner Brothers.
ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: Watch how the film gets around the Hollywood Production Code during an unethical medical procedure. People say editing can save a film, it also can save a hero’s life.
SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: *Why didn’t these three hit the A-list? Best guess: Reagan only able to play one note at a time. Smith too tall for three-quarters of Hollywood’s leading men. Scott . . . well, that’s a tough one. Too good for his own good? See what he does under Jean Renoir in THE SOUTHERNER https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2018/08/the-southerner-1945.html
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