FRENCH QUARTER (1978)

A poor country girl heads to New Orleans.  Lost and penniless in the big city, she takes up a job as a stripper, but then when she drinks some tea given to her by a voodoo woman she falls asleep and wakes up/dreams that she's actually a prostitute living in 19th century New Orleans.

In the right hands that lame story idea could be turned into something entertaining, but unfortunately, instead of simply making it a light sex comedy the filmmakers for some reason decided to make FRENCH QUARTER a mostly serious film about a dim-witted chick involved with sex slave trafficking.  The next poor decision they made was filming the entire "back in time" section (the majority of the movie) with what looks to be Vaseline smeared on the edges of the camera lens.  I'm assuming this is to give it some kind of dreamy feel and that would've been okay for a few seconds but 75 minutes is just ridiculous.

The acting was alright (I have absolutely no idea how Virginia Mayo got involved with this mess), but like I said...this should have been a comedy instead of a serious film.  I'm sure there are people out there who like this movie, but I found the whole thing to be very slow and ultimately pointless.  Skip it. 

There was some lackluster nudity if anybody cares.

COLORADO TERRITORY (1949)

This loose retelling of HIGH SIERRA, finds Joel McCrea in the Bogart character as a criminal who's hired for a big robbery job, but troubled by his growing conscience.  Along the way to meet his new partners, he foils a stagecoach robbery and takes a liking to a old man and his beautiful daughter.  Once he arrives at the ghost town where his team is waiting for him, he finds them not to his liking and even worse is there's a woman with them.  As expected, the tension among the men grows and the robbery doesn't go as planned.  Now on the run from a bloodthirsty posse, McCrea has to make some quick decisions.

Strong cast and a great director, but for whatever reason COLORADO TERRITORY didn't do a whole lot for me.  It was an entertaining watch, but I felt like I'd already seen all of this before...probably because I did in HIGH SIERRA!  Also, I didn't care for seeing McCrea as a bad guy.  I understand that he was having a change of heart, but he's still a criminal and a killer.

Worth watching, but unfortunately it doesn't bring anything new to the table.

Original - High Sierra (1941)
Remake 2 - I Died a Thousand Times (1955)

ALONG THE GREAT DIVIDE (1951)

Excellent western.  Kirk Douglas (in his first western) plays a law man who, along with his two deputies, come upon a man (Walter Brennan) about to get lynched.  Kirk rescues the guy and hears from the lynching party that he's guilty of murder.  Kirk reminds them that it's not up to them to take the law into their own hands and he's gonna take the accused man into town for a fair trial.  Easier said than done cause the town is a long way off and the men from the lynching party are hellbent on killing this dude.  Added to the direct threat of getting shot by the men trailing them, Douglas has to deal with the psychological warfare being dealt out by the accused man (and his daughter Virginia Mayo) who will do anything to free him including turning Kirk's own deputies against him.

I don't know what the earliest example of the "transporting-the-prisoner" sub-genre is, but this does a great job of it.  Quick pace, top-notch acting, well-written script, beautiful desert scenery, good camerawork.  Overall ALONG THE GREAT DIVIDE is a solid film.  Recommended.

Double-feature with THE NAKED SPUR.