The King and Four Queens (1956)

Clark Gable is Don Kehoe, a gambler whose curiosity is piqued when he hears about Wagon Mound, a ghost town inhabited by five women who have hidden $100,000 in gold.

Seems the four McDade brothers pulled off a bank job, stashed the money, then took refuge in a barn when the posse showed up. Someone tried to smoke them out and wound up blowing up the barn instead.

Three bodies were found inside. Now their mother (Jo Van Fleet as Ma McDade) and four wives await the survivor’s return and do their best to keep strangers away from Wagon Mound.

Using info gleaned from a saloon owner, Kehoe pretends he’s dodging the law and gets the women to give him refuge until the rainy season comes and he can slip away undetected.

He finds Wagon Mound a fairly interesting place to be. Turns out the widows aren’t waiting very patiently. The group includes a Mexican spitfire named Ruby, a former saloon girl named Birdie, a mild-mannered virginal type named Oralie and a very practical blonde named Sabina (Eleanor Parker).

Kehoe immediately starts flirting with the ladies, trying to get information on where the gold is hidden. Ma, of course, does her best to keep the girls in line, constantly reminding them that one is still married. And since no one is certain which one, she figures they should all act as if they’re married.

Can her willpower win in a match against Kehoe’s conniving ways?

Review:

If it’s action you want in a Western, this isn’t it. If it’s a Western with a unique plot, well, this isn’t bad. And we get a couple of neat twists at the end.

But Gable was 55 at the time and looked it, making the idea of four young beauties fawning over him a little hard to believe, regardless of how man-starved they might have been.

All of the young ladies playing wives of the McDade brothers were at least 20 years Gable’s junior. As the big-busted blonde bimbo, Nichols gets all the best lines.

Van Fleet, who turns in the film’s best performance in the Ma McDade role, was also younger than Gable. She was 42 at the time. In fact, the next year she’d co-star in a much younger role — the woman Johnny Ringo abuses in “Gunfight at the O.K. Corral.”

Directed by:
Raoul Walsh

Cast:
Clark Gable … Dan Kehoe
Eleanor Parker … Sabina McDade
Jean Willes … Ruby
Barbara Nichols … Birdie
Sara Shane … Oralie
Jo Van Fleet … Ma McDade
Roy Roberts … Sheriff Larrabee
Arthur Shields … Padre
Jay C. Flippen … Bartender
Florenz Ames … Undertaker

Runtime: 82 min.

Memorable lines:

Bartender: “As long as you insist on going to Wagon Mound, I’ll buy you your last drink.”
Dan Kehoe: “Thanks, but that one hasn’t been put in the bottle yet.”

Birdie, singing: “When I was a little girl, I used to play with toys. Now that I’m a bigger girl, I’d rather play with … Where is he (Kehoe)?”

Sabina: “If I was you, Mr. Kehoe, I wouldn’t lie to her (Ma McDade). Or try to play any games with me, either.”
Kehoe: “There’s a few I’d like to try, Miss.”

Birdie to Kehoe, explaining why she knows it wasn’t her husband who survived: “He wouldn’t have run away like that. He always did exactly what his brothers did. If they wanted to stay in that barn and get blowed up, he would have stayed and got blowed up, too.”

Kehoe, upon learning the women raise chickens: “How is the egg business these days?”
Sabina: “There isn’t any. The hens aren’t laying.”
Kehoe: “Maybe you need a new rooster.”

Birdie, as Ma McDade goes looking for Kehoe, rifle in hand: “If she shoots him, I hope she misses.”

Kehoe, as he prepares to leave Wagon Mound: “One day, maybe, a smarter man than me will ride by this way and relieve you of that gold. If that should happen, don’t feel too bad about it. It didn’t belong to you anyway.”

Clark Gable as Dan Kehoe and Barbara Nichols as Birdie share a song in The King and Four Queens (1956)

Clark Gable as Dan Kehoe shares a quiet moment with Oralie (Sara Shane) in The King and Four Queens (1956)