Before he became the well-known name associated with Westerns, John Wayne was just Marion Robert Morrison, or Duke to those who knew him. The great director Raoul Walsh, who discovered him as a prop guy hauling furniture across soundstages, lay the groundwork for his success. Walsh gave him his first significant starring part in the 1930 Western The significant Trail, and he also gave him the legendary moniker John Wayne. It would be a decade before the two greats worked together again, this time on the uncompromising, Oscar-nominated crime Western Dark Command. The film is an adaptation of William Riley Burnett’s 1938 novel of the same title. It’s in Dark Command.In their lone film collaboration, Wayne would pair up with another superb performer of his time, “the King of the Cowboys,” singer, actor, radio and television icon Roy Rogers.
Roy Rogers, like John Wayne, had a less-than-glamorous start to his great acting career, and he starred in a number of films under his birth name, Leonard Slye. Similar to Wayne’s trip, where Fox Studios requested that he adopt a new stage name, Leonard Slye would experience the same fate at Republic Pictures, with the company finally agreeing on the moniker Roy Rogers, partlyas a tribute to Will Rogers, the well-known actor and humorist. John Wayne and Roy Rogers would rise to the pinnacle of Hollywood, making a lasting impression on the Western genre. However, it was in Dark Command that two of cinema’s golden boys had their sole meeting and shone on the silver screen, laying the groundwork for their future artistic wizardry.
What’s ‘Dark Command’ About?
Set against the backdrop of Civil War politics in the North and South, Dark Command follows Bob Seton (John Wayne), a Texan idealist who has fallen in love with his new town, Lawrence, Kansas, and especially its heroine, Mary McCloud (Claire Trevor). Roy Rogers’ character Fletcher is Mary’s brother. Bob dislikes the divided politics of the time period, but he dislikes the town’s widespread crime even more. Sharing the same mentality, John Wayne’s and Roy Rogers’ characters unwittingly band up in a Bad Boys-esque fashion to educate street thugs aA lesson in etiquette. Though uneducated, Wayne’s Bob is motivated by a desire for a more equal society and runs for the empty Marshal’s office. Taking adult literacy lessons, he finds that the town’s popular, dynamic instructor, William Cantrell (Walter Pidgeon), with whom he intends to enrol in the classes, is also running for Marshal. To make matters worse for Bob, Mary, his major interest in the new town, is the teacher’s fiancée. While luck is on his side, he wins the first round of challenges, but the advent of the Civil War allows his adversary to go rogue. Based on the historical story of the infamous criminal William Clarke Quantrill from the Quantrill’s Raiders, the Dark Command’s The monster commits heinous acts upon civilians. Bob must confront him in order to bring love and justice to his people. Dark Command depicts violent exploits like as arson, murder, corruption, and fear against townspeople, creating a bleak image of surviving in the Old West.
However, not everything in Dark Command is dismal. Despite its harshness, the picture has its share of light moments, with John Wayne’s screen sidekick George Francis “Gabby” Hayes as an eccentric dentist who gives a lot of comedic relief. Hayes would become Roy Rogers’ dependable colleague in following projects. In Dark Command, Hayes’ classic waggish demeanour temporarily distracts us from the scores of people Cantrell is slaughtering and the structures he is destroying. Dark Command weaves a fascinating story around the stark truths of ambition, loyalty, and justice. The film’s narrative revolves around the ideals or beliefs onthe one hand, and the alluring power of control on the other. As Bob Seton evolves from an idealistic novice to a steadfast figure of authority, his unrelenting pursuit of justice contrasts sharply with William Cantrell’s fall into vicious crime. The film deftly examines the contradiction between anarchy and order. This subject is especially meaningful since Bob’s unrelenting drive embodies the continual battle for fairness and justice.
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