Pittsburgh

Moviecut—Pittsburgh

source: Pittsburgh

Pennsylvania coal miners "Pittsburgh" Markham (John Wayne) and "Cash" Evans (Randolph Scott) look to move up in the world, and start their own coal operation. They run into trouble when they both fall for the same woman, "Hunky" Winters (Marlene Dietrich). This starts out as wartime propaganda promoting the coal and steel industries, but it soon moves into traditional melodrama territory. Dietrich and Scott are both fine in their roles, but the star is undeniably Wayne, and it's a strange role for him. He's charming in his grinning, macho way, but his character spends much of the film as a complete jerk, insulting and betraying most of the other characters. It's a very shaded characterization from someone who usually plays the white-hat hero. There are a few memorable sequences here, particularly the stage-set boxing match and a big rough'n'tumble fight in the coal mines, but these are few and far between.

John Wayne at his greatest. This particular movie doesn't have horses or guns or even the Wild West but it has America at its best. The movie isn't your typical John Wayne movie at all. But like many of Wayne's movies he is the unlikely hero who pulls no punches. The movie is about a man that starts at the bottom and works his way to the top and finds himself back at the bottom again. But in any good redemption story he shows hard work and determination can get you at the top again. The first time around is for money and power but the second time is for love and friendship. Many people won't give this a ten and they are wrong. It's a beautiful John Wayne movie and I'll continue to watch it for years to come.

This film is sort of like "The Spoilers II", as the three leads in this film had just starred in THE SPOILERS and the tone and style of the two movies are so similar. Once again, Marlene Dietrich, Randolph Scott and John Wayne star as people who are all determined to strike it rich, and like the previous movie, they do. But it all comes at a great cost, as Wayne slowly looses sight of what was important in life and he slowly becomes a twisted and greedy industrialist. At the same time, Scott and Dietrich are waiting in the wings---waiting and hoping that Wayne will come around to his senses. The film begins during WWII and Scott is making a patriotic speech about how everyone needs to continue giving their best for the war effort. Then, in an office, Scott, Wayne and their old friends reminisce about the old days. At this point, the film gos back about twenty years. All of them are poor and Scott and Wayne are humble coal miners. However, to impress Dietrich (who wants more out of life than to just marry a humble miner), he connives and builds himself a dandy little empire. Oddly, although the film is set in the 1920s, Universal Studios did a lousy job of trying to achieve the look. Everyone dresses like they do in the 40s and the cars are all late models--barely a 20s-era car in sight! This is just sloppy. While it doesn't ruin the film, this must be considered when giving the film a rating. Also, while Wayne does a very good job of evolving into a total jerk, because the film starts out with Wayne and Scott together, you know that eventually, Wayne changes back to the character he was at the beginning of the film. This takes out all the suspense, plus it seems a bit hard to believe--after all, he was very, very bad before this. On top of all this, the preachy narration seemed preachy and the WWII propaganda aspect was a bit heavy-handed. Despite the film following this formula and the anachronisms, the movie still is quite entertaining and worth seeing. Just don't expect Wayne's or Scott's best.

Pittsburg is a follow-up to The Spoilers, reprising the dynamic lead trio of Marlene Dietrich, Randolph Scott, and John Wayne. The three attractive leads are backed up by the likes of Frank Craven, Thomas Gomez, Samuel S. Hinds, and Louise Allbitton. Shemp Howard is also on hand for some comic relief, displaying a somewhat more subtle brand of humor than when hanging around with brother Moe and Larry Fine. Released just one year after Pearl Harbor, this Universal "A" production wraps some timely, flag-waving boosterism for the war effort around a twenty-year saga of the steel and coal industry. Should have been a top-notch picture, but falls far short of the mark. The chemistry between Dietrich, Scott and Wayne, which worked so well in the Spoilers is not here, partly because Marlene and the Duke are both over the edge of their respective ranges. Scott was fine as a baddie in The Spoilers, and he is quite good here as the good-natured, ethical foil for the heel John Wayne plays in Pittsburg. The likable Wayne was not far removed from his days as a low-budget cowboy star, and he was perhaps not quite ready to play such an overbearing, cruel, tyrannical character, though he would have that role well refined by the end of the 1940's in time for two riveting performances in Red River and Wake Of The Red Witch (see my review). Still, he comes off better in the role handed him by the lack-luster script, which was much of the movie's problem, than poor Marlene. Nothing could better illustrate the sobering and sanitizing effect World War II had on the movies than to compare the sexy Marlene with her see-through tops and her hot song and dance numbers in The Seven Sinners (1940) and The Spoilers (early 1942) to the drab creature she is reduced to in Pittsburg. No see-through, no legs, no seductive looks, no cigarette holder, not an inch of flesh showing below the collar! The martyr-like character she becomes after being dumped by Wayne while he's stepping on all the people who helped him to the top is almost like somebody's dowdy old maid sister. Even in The Garden Of Allah (see my review) she managed to look sexy while convincingly playing a nice, good Catholic girl. Wasted here. Pacing was the worst problem in Pittsburg. It was too fast when it should have taken some time but too slow when it should have moved on. The pivotal transformation of Wayne's character from a somewhat arrogant, but likable big lug of a poor coal miner to a rich, ruthless, power hungry, robber baron mine owner seems to take only about three seconds of screen time, and we are given too few details of how it happened. Yet when Scott courts the spurned Marlene on the rebound, it takes forever before anything happens. No wonder the principle characters became middle aged without having any children! Lay this poor pacing at the door of director Lewis Seiler. A perusal of his filmography turns up few winners and an unsurprising dearth of "A" productions. In spite of all this Pittsburg was still a fairly entertaining movie. The acting was good from top to bottom of the cast, especially considering the script they were handed. There were some good action scenes including the obligatory mine cave-in, a wild prize fight scene, and a rock-'em-sock-'em fist fight between Scott and Wayne, really better done than the one in the Spoilers. The patriotic scenes of American industry going into high gear to produce war material for fighting the Nazis and the Rising Sun, effectively and sincerely narrated by World War I veteran Scott, will be stirring to one who is a red-blooded American, rather than a "citizen of the world". While below expectations, Pittsburg is still a pretty good watch.

. . . in a movie plot which eerily foreshadows his Real Life descent from being a regular Joe to a personage some biographers have dubbed "the American Anti-Christ." As Charles "P!TTSBURGH" Markham, Wayne states that he's against adequate public schools, because he does not want any of the children of U.S. workers to become smart enough to see through his own shady business dealings, his habitual prevarication, his personal philandering, his work place safety violations, his exploitative wage structure, and his Solipcistic (not to mention Sociopathic) self-absorption. "In my book, every time that the clock strikes, it ought to ring like a cash register," Chuck tells his partners as he weasels out of a major medical research commitment because it might prove a tad less lucrative than his other ventures. Perceptive Americans know that President Reagan was merely Wayne's hand puppet (from beyond the grave, yet!), and that the Rich People's Party continues to implement Wayne's goals to dumb down Today's America by poisoning working people's kids with leaded water and denying funding for the fight against Zika, since both lead and Zika produce the sort of voters that the RPP can easily dupe. This movie would merit a rating of "10," except that the U.S. War Dept. Censors forced the writers to tack on a totally implausible ten-minute "happy" ending for Wayne.

My DVD is part of the Marlene Dietrich collection and this film is set against the backdrop of the coal and coking industry, the typical American story about starting with nothing and ending a tycoon. But, of course, for business partners John Wayne - who bulldozes his way through and over anybody and everything and Randolph Scott, who is socially conscience the way to the top is interspersed with the, as always, beguiling Marlene Dietrich. The production values are good, directed by Lewis Sellar and there's some smart dialogue - 'he's so crooked, he could hide behind a corkscrew' and to Dietrich 'a Christmas tree is dead until it's all lit up' but the story fairly rattles along that each piece and chapter are dealt as briefly and bluntly as Wayne's character (he's called Pittsburgh, or 'Pitt', as well as the story set in the city of the same name) and it's frankly hard to keep up. This bamboozles any prospective romances to blossom and there's an awful lot of technical talk about unflattering by-products from coal - slag, sulphur, clinker - making this a movie that's not for those looking for a lot of Dietrich or romance. She is good, when she is seen, but Pittsburgh is more a sparring duet between Randolph Scott and John Wayne. So 6/10; not a bad film but not a particularly good one, either.

"Pittsburgh" is the second movie for the team of Marlene Dietrich, Randolph Scott, and John Wayne. It is better than "The Spoilers". It is fun to see almost the same cast in completely different movies. Ms. Dietrich becomes a career woman and is the love interest for both men. The musical score is beautiful but repetitious. This is a good "B" movie with an "A" cast. Too bad they never worked again, for instance, in another western. It's fun to see Mr. Scott as a mature love interest.

No doubt things were confusing at the onset of World War Two, especially with one American defeat after another, yet political confusion is no reason to move Dodge City to Pennsylvania and call it Pittsburgh. This movie is a warmed-over western, pure and simple. All the ingredients of a formula plot are incorporated, including the ambition, the fist fight and the rich "cowgirl." The themes of redemption for the good of the nation and cooperation in steel production define the conversion of steel plants during the war. The only real question is whether an overly ambitious industrialist (John Wayne) can be corralled for the benefit of the nation, of labour, and of the company itself. The acting is fairly stiff and the plot predictable. One expects more from the film, but it just doesn't happen. Redemption is a common salvation for overly selfish industrialist, but there is little that can redeem this movie--it seems to be a remake of a remake of a remake. For anyone who likes westerns, this movie is ideal. How often does one find a western in the East?