Highly Overrated But Still Good

I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

Four wives and their mother in law hold out in an abandoned mission where they keep close watch on stolen gold. Learning about the presence of the valuable loot, a still handsome Clark Gable arrives, claiming that he ran into one of the supposedly deceased husbands, giving himself claims to stay, find the treasure and cause all sorts of tension with the fiery young women which includes sensible Eleanor Parker, floozy Barbara Nichols, fiery Jean Willed and innocent Sara Shane. Embittered ma Jo Van Fleet keeps the girls under a strict watch (and surprisingly no chastity belts) and continuous religious quotes while Gable makes secret meetings with each of them. Hokey at times, this has several camp moments, especially Van Fleet's constant screeching of Gable's character name, Keyhole, which on occasion sounds like Hee Haw. Van Fleet makes the best of a cold character by giving her a no-nonsense persona and shouting each line as if she was calling in the cattle. She's a slightly better looking version of Marjorie Main and even more theatrical. Gable gets to sing and dance a bit and comes off as a bit tongue on cheek. As for the four wives, they ate all equally filled with list but a ridiculous script gives them varying personalities. A really surprising twist ends the film dramatically. Like a few other Westerns of the 1940's and 1950's, this has a bit of a noir feeling about it, bit the color photography hides it. All in all, not bad but not one that will go on the classic westerns list either.

Extremely disappointing western starring Clark Gable, Eleanor Parker and Jo Van Fleet. Despite the great cast, weak writing did this film in.Finding out that an old woman is staying with her 4 daughters-in-law in a house, and hiding gold-Gable decides to pay the ladies a visit. Seems that the old woman's four sons robbed a bank and three of them got blown up in the process. They're waiting for the return of the surviving son. The wait can be compared to Come Back, Little Sheba.The film is ridiculous at best. As the old lady, Jo Van Fleet is a pistol-packing grandma type. She has somewhat of a heart but is as nasty as can be while she quotes from the bible. Van Fleet, who made a career of playing much older women, looks like she just came out of playing Katie Roth in the later scenes of the memorable "I'll Cry Tomorrow."No doubt about it, Gable was aging by 1956. Barbara Nicholls has that sing-song voice which is so inappropriate here. She talks like she is still in a comedy sketch of Wayne and Schuster on the old Ed Sullivan television series.The one shining point here is Eleanor Parker who is young and vibrant. She together with Gable ultimately fool the rest of the cast, but you can't be fooled by poor writing and not much going on. For a western, we lack complete action. Can you imagine Gable and the girls singing and dancing with a suspicious Van Fleet looking on?

The King and Four Queens marked the fourth time Raoul Walsh tried his hand in directing a motion picture in Cinemascope, the first three of them being Battle Cry, The Tall Man and The Revolt of Mamie Stover the second of them being also the first film out of three in totality that Walsh made with legendary Clark Gable. In The King and Four Queens Gable plays a handsome middle-aged adventurer Don Kehoe, known in the West for his skills in using a gun who comes to a rancho called Wagon Mound with its entire population consisting of five women, four of them being beautiful widows of the McDade gang brothers recently killed while attempting to rob a bank. They are led by a tough middle-aged Ma McDade (Jo Van Fleet) who is quite feared and respected not only by the four young widows under her command but also by a population of all villages and towns a few hundreds miles around the ranch. Promptly upon our hero's arrival, the rivalry among the four sisters as about conquering of Don Kehoe's heart ensues, resulting in many insignificant troubles manly for the old mother-chief. The purpose of Don Kehoe's joining of such a pleasant company nonetheless is a large sum of money that, as a word goes around, is hidden at the ranch and which hiding place he ought to find by any means. Overall the average Western as it is, The King and Four Queens provides much less viewing pleasure then one may expect from an average one, but nonetheless it has its interesting moments and is a worth watching experience for a genre fan. 6/10

Stranger Gable hears of a treasure of gold, hidden somewhere in a ghost town and guarded by an old woman and four widows. "Man's man" Gable throws all of his charms in the battle to find out where to find the treasure. As you see, the storyline is very very thin here. Most of the film is about Gable trying to charm the women, using every single trick in the book. There are a few minor surprises near the end, but this is really nothing special. Nice to catch on a rainy afternoon. 6/10