Reviews (22)

A new side to Wayne, here the woman calls the shots!
I've always been a huge John Wayne fan but have only recently seen Angel and the Badman. It is now one of my favorite films! Wayne portrays a gambling, drinking, womanizing, gunslinger in the Old West. He meets a charming Quaker family that end up nursing him back to health after he's taken ill...and that's where the plot really starts. The beautiful daughter that has taken care of him finds herself smitten and when he awakens she has no reservations in telling him so. The highlight of this movie was her outright honesty about her feelings for Wayne, as a result we get to see him be the persuee for once! It's also exciting to see him struggle to decide how to make decisions in light of her passive beliefs. The most captivating thing about Angel and the Badman is that we get to see a whole new John Wayne, and wouldn't you know it, he's still as wonderful as ever!

Well Written, Well Acted, Well Done!
This is a great Wayne flick, and a great western to boot. I wasn't expecting much from a 1940's western, and the first 15 minutes or so seemed to prove my worst fears right. There is some terribly preachy philisophical dialog between Gail Russell's Quaker father and the local athiest doctor, arguing about the inherent good in all men vs the stupidity of living life by high-ideals alone, blah blah blah. It was spoken in that stilted voice that every bit actor of the time seemed to imitate, as if they were reading the news. I could just see the ending, with the hero dead and the philosophers saying something like "All men pay the price who..." blah blah blah

In comes John Wayne to save the day, with a wonderful freshness in his every manner and word. Young, cocky, Wayne's performance is totally deserving of his superstar status, and is only matched by Gail Russell, who is perhaps the best female lead of any Wayne film. Russell brings some real life to the peaceful ideals of the Quakers (which appear terribly naive given the setting), and you can't help but fall in love with her hope and beauty. The Duke matches her step for step, playing a wild boy who is only a few trigger-pulls away from a hanging. Wayne always obeys Russell's requests for non-violent, peaceful solutions to problems, yet he can't help but putting his own mischievious country-boy spin on everything.

In one short scene, we discover that a mean neighbor has damed the local water source. Russell and her family pray for his cold heart to melt while Wayne rides off and intimidates him into undamming it. When the Quakers shower the neighbor with food and kindness, his heart does melt, and he thanks Wayne for "asking" him to undam the water. The Duke is stunned. And moments like these litter this movie.

Watching the Duke's heart melt to Russell's charms is the best part of this movie. Their romance is perfectly paced and entirely believable. Wayne is at his romantic best, and Russell has enough ability and looks to match him. The ending is a little too neat and sudden, but I just wished I could watch another 2 hours. Great stuff.

The chased and the chaste
The first shot of a character in a movie often tells you quite a bit about them, and Gail Russell has a doozy of a first shot in THE ANGEL AND THE BADMAN. While the title is running an unidentified cowboy is being chased and shot at by another group of cowboys. Although he evades them, his horse stumbles and he falls to the ground. Thomas Worth (John Halloran) and daughter Penelope (Gail Russell) are nearby. Thomas jumps off the cart they're riding and rushes to the fallen stranger. He calls to Penelope to come here, quick, and she whips the horses into a quick gallop.
The first center-framed image in the film is of Penelope in the cart, shot from far below, standing tall with a dark and troubled sky framing her ethereal beauty. There is something, this shot tells us, that is majestic and strong about her. It's a beautiful shot.
The injured cowboy is Quirt Evans (John Wayne), the Badman. This being Wayne, and this being a film from a different era, you'll have to take his Bad-ness with a grain of salt. When the Worth's announce they're going to tend to the injured cowboy, a bystander tells them he'd "as soon have a black powder bomb in my house."
The Worth's are Quakers, and the movie convincingly traces the developing love between Quirt and Penelope. Not so convincing is the interest the Law, Marshall Wistful McClintock (Harry Carey) and the Bad Guys show in Quirt. They have to be there, I guess, because Evans will have to renounce the gun or renounce the girl. They have to be there, but the sub-plots are half-cooked.
What would thee do if thee were pitching woo at a Quaker beauty? Probably pretty much the same thing Wayne did - bounce a baby in your arms, pick a few blackberries, and leave your guns behind at the worst possible times.
For an action movie this one is a little too wordy. The Marshall and the doctor (Tom Powers) are given pages and pages of script to read. What action there is - particularly the stampede and the cart chase - are well choreographed.
THE ANGEL AND THE BADMAN is good clean fun, pleasant enough for all audiences.

A Pre-Review
The 3 stars above are on the strength of the movie itself. I'm waiting to see how good this transfer is.

I recently bought a different DVD edition of this movie (a "double feature" with a docu about Wayne's movie career as the other feature), and the transfer was literally the worst I've ever seen for any movie. It looked like it was done by pressing Silly Putty onto the film stock and then onto the DVD. Just wanted to give everyone a warning to avoid that edition.

Other reviews indicate this edition is a good transfer, so once I confirm that, I'll give it another star.

Banal and trite
A western film before the spaghetti time. John Wayne is equal to himself and the situation is very banal. A badman in the west escape the rope by falling in love with a quaker girl who moves him out of his weapons. He becomes a farmer. A rare case of conversion that succeeds. Apart from that the film is too moralistic to be really an image of the west anywhere and at any time.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU ... Read more