User reviews

This 1955 version of The Spoilers for Universal Pictures remains the fifth and last version on film. After over 50 years it could use another remake and I'm surprised no one has done one. I can see someone like Russell Crowe in the hero role as Gary Cooper, John Wayne, and Jeff Chandler in this film have done before.

Not much variation on the plot in this film. Rory Calhoun plays the charming, but very caddish gold commissioner who has a carefully thought out scheme to rob Jeff Chandler and John McIntire of the contents of their mine. Calhoun is also jumping Chandler's claim on saloon owner Anne Baxter and Chandler himself doesn't help his cause when he starts giving Barbara Britton the once over. What he doesn't know is Britton is in league with Calhoun and company.

If you've seen the film that starred Marlene Dietrich, John Wayne and Randolph Scott from 1943 also for Universal you know exactly how this one comes out. All the cast including the three leads acquit themselves well in the roles carved out by movie legends.

I'd really love to see the 1930 version of The Spoilers that Gary Cooper starred in, but apparently the film is lost. If someone knows something else on the subject, let me know.

In any event this version of The Spoilers is fast moving and exciting western entertainment for fans of action films with a nice dose of sex, courtesy of Anne Baxter.

Rex Beaches 1906 novel had been done 2 times as a silent film, twice as a sound film prior to this outing. So the plot had been used and reused with slight differences. This one pretty much follows the same plot.

The 1942 version with Marlenea Deitrich, and John Wayne is better that this one for star power. The 1930 version starring Gary Cooper was once in a late show tv package in the 1960's but is now considered a lost film. The silents are impossible for most modern viewers to watch. That brings us to 1955.

Rory Calhoun is a fairly big name actor, while Jeff Chandler is most comfortable in formats other than westerns which even though this is Alaska, it plays mostly as a Western. Anne Baxter is okay here. In fact the whole cast is okay. That's the problem, as this film really adds nothing to the previous versions and the stars are not as good as the John Wayne / Randolph Scott version.

This version is currently on Grit. Would love it if the channel could run the Scott/Wayne/Dietrich version with this as a double feature. If they could run the Cooper version too, it would make an interesting triple. Especially with all those bulb head commercials the channel runs. If they could remake it today and make it more of an "R" rated film, it could actually sell tickets. With a good cast, it could be re-made well and use some modern effects and some :mature loving plot to update it.

In the small western town of Nome, "spoiling" is rife – that is the practice of driving others off their land and jumping onto others' claims as if they were your own. Without law and order Dextry and his partner Roy Glennister risk losing their mine to a group of characters out to jump their claim. The law is controlled by Alexander McNamara who stands to greatly benefit from getting control of the mines. As if the tension between Glennister and McNamara isn't tight enough as a result of this, McNamara also has eyes for Glennister's longtime girlfriend, hostess Cherry Malotte.

Having seen several westerns from the 1950's recently, I came to this with the impression that it would be just yet another forgettable genre film and, in a way, I suppose it was. However this is not to say that it is an average film because it is actually a pretty enjoyable genre picture. The plot mixes gun fights with crime with semi-love triangles and an air of comedy. It doesn't all sit well together but it does enough to provide an entertaining 90 minutes in the way that films of this nature used to try and do for their audiences. I personally didn't buy the love conflict aspect of it and would have liked that toned down a little bit in favour of more of the claim-jumping aspect but it all did enough to distract me on a quiet evening in.

The cast are solid enough but none of them particularly stuck in my mind. Baxter is colourful and does bring life to the film but the two male leads didn't impress me at all. Calhoun is just a mould of a leading man – nice smile, big chest, big jaw but nothing specific or special about him. Meanwhile Chandler just seems too old and grey for the character he is asked to play and I kept feeling like I was losing sight of him among the extras. Support from McIntire, Danton and others is OK but mostly the cast are just doing what the genre requires and no more.

Overall this is an enjoyable genre picture and it will provide entertainment for fans. The casual viewer will note the weaknesses that are inherent in this type of film but to be fair to it, it only does what you expect and for me it did it well enough to be a distracting piece of fun when I was in the mood for a solid bawdry western and nothing more.

Had "The Spoilers" not been a remake (in fact, it was remade several times before 1955), I would have likely scored the film an 8....that, and the sloppy use of doubles at the end of the story.

The story is set in 1899 during the Alaska/Yukon gold rush...so, it's not exactly a western...though it often plays like one. A group of no-good scoundrels have come up with a scheme to steal gold mine claims...and at first, Roy (Jeff Chandler) tries to keep a level head and convinces his partner (John McIntire) to let the law run its course. Well, this clearly does not work and Roy doesn't realize how crooked and how deep the scheme runs. Eventually, when they learn the truth, Roy and the other miners are fighting mad. Along for the ride are a couple ladies....one a saloon owner and all-around dame and the other...well, she's keeping a few secrets.

While the film doesn't feature as impressive a cast as the previous version of the film (which starred John Wayne, Randolph Scott and Marlene Dietrich), the second-tier cast with Chandler, Rory Calhoun, Ray Danton, Anne Baxter and many others is quite good. Also, the studio apparently thought enough of the production to sink a buttload of money in creating a massive train wreck and the craziest fight scene I can remember seeing in a movie (although if you look closely, you can see that OFTEN the fighters are stuntmen and not Chandler and Calhoun!). Overall, the film is a lot of fun...and quite exciting. Well worth seeing.

IMDB and wiki says this is less than an hour and a half. The version I saw was nearly two hours. The main title also had a title in Spanish translating into The Corruption of Alaska. Could this be a Spanish version? There's also a good amount of time between the ending that wiki describes and the ending in this film. I wonder if there is added footage?

Another odd thing -- it appears to be based in the late 1800's but there's a scene early on where a bar tender presses an electrical button to alert someone that a person has come into the saloon/gambling joint.

Overall, this is a B western in my book. Directed like a TV movie.

This comes nowhere near the quality of the original film with John Wayne and Randolph Scott. Jeff Chandler is too old and has no class. Rory Calhoun is the new kid on the block, but he is not impressive in the Scott role. And even though Anne Baxter is a good actress in her own right, she is no replacement for Marlene Dietrich. She has class with Wayne in both the original film and 'Seven Sinners'. There is no real tension between Chandler and Colhoun like there was between Wayne and Scott, and it made you realise that even if the plot is a bit pedestrian at times, the performances between Wayne, Scott and Dietrich maintained your attention. This is not the case in this version and I would advise fans to stay away from this version and watch the original.

The first scene gave me great hopes. The miner's dirty clothes, the looks of the town and the muddy street. Then my hopes were dashed when the lady showed up. This was Nome, Alaska in 1899 and she show up wearing a dress, hat and feathers that would be more appropriate at a San Francisco opera. During the rest of the movie, all the major characters wore clothes that were always clean, pressed and way too fancy for the time and place. I've never understood why directors would allow a movie to be made with such obvious flaws. Makes no sense. The movie had a pretty good plot but for me, the 1956 style acting, script and special effects could have been done so much better with a little more thought.

All these Alaskan films are usually worth watching mainly for their splendid bar fights, in which the contestants usually conscientiously wreck the entire establishment, break all windows, smash all bottles, destroy the entire bar and make a perfect exorbitant havoc of the whole studio set-up. Anne Baxter is no Marlene Dietrich, but any film with Jeff Chandler is worth watching just for his sake if for nothing else, and although he is no John Wayne he is more likable and intelligent. Earlier films on this book of gold diggers being cheated of their mines by foul play were usually in black and white, while this one is in color. It doesn't make the story any better, but it adds color to the fights, making them more splendidly colorful. Still the earlier version with Marlene Dietrich and John Wayne is to be preferred, it was more alive, while the only truly genuine characters here are the old gold diggers defending what they waged their lives for.