weezeralfalfa
Poor beautiful Lorena(Yvonne De Carlo) spends most of this rare,for the times, Technicolor B western scowling and throwing things at tall handsome Johnny Hart(Rod Cameron) because he seems to have no heart for her. The romantic relationships in this wacky western make no sense at all! Johnny rides into town, a stranger. Brassy Lorena, who owns and stars in the town saloon, decides he's the right man for her after he brazenly grabs and kisses her in public, not once, but in a series, with a slap from her after each. Soon, she announces to her acquaintances that she's going to marry him. Only trouble is she forgot to ask him if he's agreeable. Horrors, he wouldn't marry her if she were the last woman on earth! Why? Because she's a low class saloon entertainer, albeit a very beautiful and colorful one. Never mind that he's an escaped convict, which she doesn't know about quite yet. Well, Lorena pulls a gun on Johnny and tells him he's gonna marry her, like it or not. He acquiesces. They have a very simple 'shotgun' wedding: no guests, no kiss, just angry looks and words. She spends the rest of the film being furious at Johnny, throwing things at him, even using him for target practice. Yes, hell hath no fury like Lorena scorned!After Johnny returns from a 6 year further prison sentence(which seems more like 6 mins.!), they talk about their future. Johnny asks her if she's going to divorce him. She answers: not if that would make him happy. He discovers he has a 6 year old daughter(Mary Ann). At first, he's not interested in her, but gradually she grows on him after he takes her to his ranch to get her away from the saloon environment. Johnny decides he's going to settle down and raise his daughter, but who is his wife going to be? He decides to invite his old straight-laced girlfriend Shella, who presumably has been waiting for him to reappear all these years! Shella arrives at his ranch with her loud-mouthed spinster aunt. Unfortunately, Johnny's friends thought he meant that he was going to ask Lorena if she would come live with him, which they communicate to Lorena. She sells her saloon and rides out, ready to live with Johnny. Confusion reigns when the various parties meet at his ranch. In the confusion, Blackie, Lorena's long time shady boyfriend, comes and abducts Mary Ann, hoping to lure Johnny into a lethal showdown. He takes the bait and rides after Blackie. Half the town follows a little later. Johnny and Blackie have a long scuffle and guess who wins.Then, Johnny has to rescue Mary Ann, who has crawled onto a precarious log overhanging a large waterfall.After all this trouble, Lorena still has angry words for him when they meet, so he gives her a good paddling over his knee. Mary Ann says that must mean he loves her, and Lorena agrees after a few minutes. Shella has seen enough and pulls out of the romantic competition. End of story. The closing background ballad ends with "If you're gonna be bad, you'd better be good".Well, the plot may be unbelievable, but if you like plenty of colorful man-woman verbal and physical fights, this is the right film. On the whole, it's a fun movie. Johnny also gets into several scuffles with men. The inclusion of Mary Ann as a major part of the second half of the film serves to soften all these negative adult interactions. The inclusion of character actors Andy Devine, Fuzzy Knight, and Frank Lackteen serves a similar purpose. The contest between Lorena and Shella plus her aunt over Johnny very much reminds me of the John Wayne western "Tall in the Saddle", released just the previous year. In that film, a wild cat brunette, rather like Lorena, and a straight-laced blond from the East plus her talkative spinster aunt are both interested in Wayne near the end of the film, and again the wildcat brunette wins.The long spanking scene at the end is what some people most remember about this film. Earlier, Mary Ann had gotten hers. Somewhere, she had gotten the idea that a spanking was a sure sign of love. In the '30s through the '60s, occasionally a Hollywood film would include the male lead spanking the female lead. Some notable examples are seen in 'McClintock", "Across the Wide Missouri" and "Kiss Me Kate" and an "I Love Lucy" TV episode. There were many more, most viewable at You Tube, if interested. In contrast, women spanking men has pretty much been relegated to deviant sexual portrayal films. In some cases, the spanking was an immediate response to a slap or other physical violence by the woman. In other cases, as in the present film, it was a response to a long bout of shrewish behavior. In still other cases, it related to a specific non-violent act by the woman. With the woman's lib movement of the '60s, this sort of thing pretty much disappeared from conventional films and TV.Yvonne spent her early Hollywood years mostly playing temptresses or cowpoke gals in low budget films. Her few A films came later, in "The Ten Commandments" and "Band of Angels", where her dark Sicilian looks were especially appropriate for the plot.As of 2015, this is now available on a no frills DVD and on You Tube.
gridoon2018
"Frontier Gal" was made in 1945, but it looks like it could have been made at least a decade later: it's dazzlingly photographed in Technicolor, has well-shot action scenes, and is not afraid of using playful violence as a form of foreplay - there is definite sexual chemistry between Rod Cameron and Yvonne De Carlo. Yvonne looks so comfortable mounting and dismounting and riding horses that it's obvious why she was chosen to star in so many Westerns. And I should not finish this comment without a special note for Beverly Simmons, who on the basis of this was probably one of the most talented child actresses of her generation, but had a very short-lived film career. **1/2 out of 4.
daneldorado
I'm one of the lucky folks who got to see "Frontier Gal" in a brilliantly hued imbibition Technicolor print -- the kind of color that commands your attention, it is so glorious.Rod Cameron plays Johnny Hart, a cowpoke on the wrong side of the law, but good-hearted nevertheless. He falls in love with Lorena (Yvonne deCarlo), a drop-dead beautiful saloon owner who, under her tough exterior, has feelings for him too. They get married, but after the honeymoon night, the law catches up with him and Johnny is sent away to prison.Seven years go by, Johnny is released, and he tries to hook up with the bride he left behind. Now he discovers he's got a six-year-old daughter, Mary Ann (Beverly Simmons), and a wife who doesn't want her daughter associating with an ex-con, never mind that he's her father.Sheldon Leonard is Blackie, leader of a gang that hates Johnny, and when he discovers his enemy has a little girl, Blackie has his gang kidnap the tyke. Johnny goes after the baddies and, after a brutal fight over a raging waterfall, rescues Mary Ann and returns her to Lorena.In other commentaries, you will read words such as "a strangely satisfying conclusion," "unthinkable in today's films," and "politically incorrect," and you may wonder what the writers mean by that. Here it is: In the final scene of this western, Johnny puts his wife over his knee and gives her a good, sound spanking. After that, she realizes that he really loves her, and decides to accept him back into her life and their daughter's life.When asked what she thought about that scene, Miss deCarlo said, "I think spankings are cute." Not your present-day P.C. attitude, perhaps, but it worked in 1945, spectacularly so. "Frontier Gal" made Yvonne deCarlo a front-line star at Universal and launched a brilliant film career.Dan Navarro (daneldorado93@yahoo.com)
