So much average

It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

The story-telling is good with flashbacks.The film is both funny and heartbreaking. You smile in a scene and get a soulcrushing revelation in the next.

The Iron Mistress (1952)I don't get the whole call of honor that leads to duels at the slightest provocation (or less). In some movies it's a fabulous dramatic point, but here it's a nagging and recurring trick, a reason for some male chest-thumping and a little bloodshed. It also represents the way the movie depends on forced drama to make the events jump. There are exceptions, like a really beautiful and unusual hand-to-hand knife/sword fight occurring in a darkened room, with an occasional bolt of lightning like a strobe going off. This is cinema trickery, a real pleasure, not part of the real story, but it's a moment of relief from the costume drama and dueling the rest of the time.This is how this movie goes. Moments of unique drama are followed by long stretches of stiff plot development. I'm not sure how the movie reflects the real story of James Bowie, whose name was given to the famous Bowie knife (knives naturally have a big role in the movie, including the forging of the first true Bowie knife). But what works best is the sense of period sets and time-travel to pre-Civil War Louisiana. The romance isn't highly romantic, and the plot is generally stiff, but it is a kind of history story come to life. If you overlook the obvious liberties and gaffes, it's not an unwatchable movie, just a routine one. Alan Ladd, it must be said, is a little cool even for Alan Ladd (an understated actor). The film does lay out the gradual shift in cultivation of the South to cotton farming, and brings out lots of old rules like the fact divorce was impossible in Louisiana without an act of the legislature. People interested in this certain kind of movie making, for its own sake, should check out "Drums Along the Mohawk" (a better movie by far, but with a similar feel somehow). Here, the camera-work by the talented John Seitz is strangely dull (though it is in true Technicolor), and the scored music by the incomparable Max Steiner is straight up functional. Most of all, the many ordinary parts are put together without great art or intensity.

As with most films, story details had to be compressed to fit it into a normal running time, but it still catches much of the flavor of the novel. The Alan Ladd portrayal is believable, though Paul Wellman's novel takes the saga all the way to the Alamo and the film ends long before that. However, it has the feel of a good period piece.The manufacture of the famous knife is foreshortened from that of the book, where Bowie discusses the design in detail with Black, the man who forges the knife. The action in the forging of the iron is quite dramatic and worthy of the reputation that the knife .. er .. carved out.The "duel in the dark" sequence was dramatically enhanced by momentary flashes of lightning, which wasn't half as ruthless as in the novel, where the entire duel was fought in pitch black.Major spoiler: The end of the film has Bowie treat the knife in sharp contrast to what happened in the novel, and for that matter, history (he gets rid of it). This may have been to create a Hollywood happy ending, but is a major shift from the novel, and from history.

In Brazil this film was known as "Nenhuma Mulher Vale Tanto" (No Woman Is Worth That Much)a very appropriate title. It could be described as a "Mississipi Western", from what I know there are two more of this type, "The Mississipi Gambler" and "The Gambler from Natchez", both came out later and were probably inspired by "The Iron Mistress". The film starts showing Jim Bowie (Alan Ladd) and his brothers together with their mother at the "bayou" where they live. Ladd goes to New Orleans to sell lumber, becomes friend with a painter, and is challenged for a duel by the aristocratic De Bornay. They end up becoming friends and Ladd falls madly in love with his sister, beautiful, but spoiled Judalon(Virginia Mayo). He gambles, makes a lot of money in land speculation and also creates the famous knife. The film shows in detail how the first knife was made, by adding metal from out of space. The knife is so impressive that I could not help thinking about the sword in "Kill Bill", they are two of a kind. Ladd is forced to kill many people because of Mayo, who is attracted to him, but an aristocratic name is what she wants to marry. The Technicolor is great, Alan Ladd has the best performance of his career and Virginia Mayo is very convincing. The film is very unusual, not a work of art, but as pure entertainment few could match it.

I've never really been a fan of westerns, I didn't grow up with them and I always thought the genre was overrated personally.Occasionally however a film comes along which has distinct appeal despite its genre, this is such a film. I'm not 100% sure why I liked it or why it stood out from the pack, there is a certain intangible aspect to it which really appeals; the closest thing that I can think of is `The Mountain' (1956, Spencer Tracy, Robert Wagner), it is a film which I believe has that same intangible quality.I'd recommend this one for both western fan and non western fan (like myself) alike.