Vera Ralston is Florinda Grove and Joan Leslie is Garnet Hale, two women looking forward to forging a new life in California.
Florinda is a saloon singer performing under the name Julie Latour in hopes of dodging a murder charge back East. Seems her former husband burned their home down in a jealous rage; he and their daughter died in the blaze.
Garnet is newly married to businessman / rancher Oliver Hale (John Russell). What she doesn’t know when she begins the journey West is that her husband has already fathered a child with the daughter of a rich Mexican rancher.
In fact, Oliver’s brother Charles (Ray Middleton) has arranged for Oliver to marry the Mexican girl once he reaches California. It will save face for the Velasco family; in turn, the Hales will wind up with a large new land holding.
Naturally, that marriage never comes off. The young Mexican girl rides off a cliff with her baby. Her family, seeking retribution, kills Oliver.
Unable to live in the home of Oliver’s brother, Garnet — now pregnant herself — finds refuge with Florinda in the new saloon where she performs. She finds a new love in frontiersman John Ives (Forrest Tucker), if she could ever convince him to settle down.
But an old enemy keeps haunting her. Oliver’s brother doesn’t think she’s a fit mother or providing a suitable living condition for his new nephew.
Review:
Based on a best-selling novel by the same name, this marked the final big-budget starring vehicle for Ralston, wife of Republic Pictures boss Herbert Yates. She’d appeared in four more films, including the 1957 Western “Gunfire at Indian Gap,” but they were much lower-budget affairs.
This is a different Western in that the focus is on the two female leads. Vera has time to sing four songs, including the title tune, which she and Buddy Baer belt out in a saloon full of patrons to drown out the cries her good friend is making while giving birth in a backroom.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t come close to being the classic is was clearly intended to be. The title is deceptive — very little screen time is used to depict the trip West. And don’t bother wondering why the brother of Joan Leslie’s brother doesn’t just marry the young Mexican girl himself. Having him do so would have eliminated the only real tension in the second half of the film.
Pat O’Brien and Jim Davis also have featured roles. The former plays a drunken doctor who sobers up long enough to deliver Garnet’s baby, but can’t escape the shame of being drunk when his troops needed him in the Army. Davis is the owner of the new California saloon where Florinda makes her living.
Directed by:
Joseph Kane
Cast:
Vera Ralston … Florinda Grove
Joan Leslie … Garnet Hale
Forrest Tucker … John Ives
John Russell … Oliver Hale
Ray Middleton … Charles Hale
Pat O’Brien … “Texas” Conway
Buddy Baer … Nicolai Karakozeff
Jim Davis … Silky
Barton MacLane … Deacon Bartlett
Richard Webb … Capt. Brown
James Millican … Rinardi
Nina Varela … Dona Manuela
Martin Garralga … Don Rafael Velasco
Charles Stevens … Pablo
Jack Elam … Whitey
Memorable lines:
Oliver Hale: “I’ve known a lot of women like you, Florinda.”
Florinda Grove: “I’m sure you have, Mr. Hale. But this time, it isn’t going to cost you anything.”
Oliver Hale to Florinda: “Seems to me, you’ve jumped from the frying pan into the brimstone.”
Nicolai Karakozeff to Florinda: “You are an unfertilized egg like me, no?”
Florinda Grove: “Well that’s a slap in the snoot if I ever heard one.”
John Ives quickly explains that “unfertilized egg” means black-haired and blue-eyed.
Florinda Grove to Garnet Hale: “You don’t even know my story, not all of it. I guess that’s because I can’t talk about it.”
Florinda Grove, after Garnett Hale has called her a “fine” woman: “Don’t go saying things like that about me. It might get around and spoil my trade. Men don’t in to drink and be merry with me because they think there’s something fine in me. They think just the opposite. That’s why I get around.”
Saloon patron to Florinda: “Why do you always wear gloves?”
Florinda: “I promised my mother I would never touch liquor.”
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