“The
Sunrise Trail” opens oddly, with the camera’s eye peering - at an off- kilter
angle - through a barred window; a man and woman are carousing; she’s wearing a
sombrero, probably the man’s, because he’s bare-headed. These are characters we’ll never see again.
They simply provide our visual starting point and we quickly pan downstairs to the -
what to call it - saloon? beer joint?
dive? Once inside, we’re right in
the middle of a gambling table altercation between loudmouth Kansas (Jack
Clifford) and crooked dealer Joe. Doing some noncommittal hovering around the
table is bargirl Goldie (Blanche Mehaffey). This is an actress who’d had a skimpy
career in silents, taken a year or two
off for voice lessons to face the mike, then finally took the talkie plunge
with this one –a pretty low level point of entry.
Here’s
where we meet Bob. He’s in a wet black slicker and looks intense as he comes in
from the rain. Our boy gets involved in the card game, winds up saving Kansas from
the crooked dealer’s machinations ( and showing
off his fast draw in the process). Result: one of those instant western movie
bondings; suddenly Bob and Kansas are best buddies. A bit
hard to fathom, this. Nothing wrong with
Bob, but Clifford’s Kansas is pretty off-putting. He’s got that aggressive simpleton vibe Wallace
Beery used to project, but even cruder and generally louder. Apparently Jack Clifford had a long vaudeville
career, his signature character a hard-of-hearing yokel called Rube. Some sources claim his shtick was the original
inspiration for cartoon character Foghorn Leghorn. Love Leghorn – but there’s
little evidence of that kind of appeal here. No compelling acting talent. Certainly
no nuance. Mostly just loud posturing. If Kansas
doesn’t like you, you’ll probably get yelled at, pummeled or shot. If he does,
he’ll stick to you like industrial strength glue. Tough to say which option’s
worse.
Head hostess at the bar is French Sadie, a
cartoon Frenchwoman engaged in some kind of high-decibel hookup with Kansas.
The two shout their lines at one another. It’s meant to be good-natured banter,
but - between his braying and her ooh-la-la-ing - it’s pretty much just noise. Sadie
also functions as a sort of crude mother figure to Goldie, whom she labels “ a
good kid’. Frenchie serves Bob and Kansas some of her signature hot tamales . Which they devour, all the while making mildly suggestive but deeply
unfunny cracks about them (by the way, shouldn’t
French Sadie be pushing crepe Suzette?). Bob takes a shine to Goldie, glowing like a
Christmas candle every time he looks at her. As for Blanche Mehaffey, who
inspires this adoration -well, imagine Bette Davis’ Mildred from “Of Human Bondage’
– minus the mean streak and most of the energy.
As an actress, Mehaffey’s not all that bad. Someone just needs to shake her by the
shoulders and yell “come on, put some pep into it!” Her Goldie comes off as a wraith-like figure, technically
alive - but barely. Rigor mortis would at least put a little suggestion of
starch into her. At her liveliest, she’s a kind of Jean Harlow with the
batteries removed. Reactions to her from the movie’s male characters generally
boil down to some variation of “what’s a nice girl like you doing in a place
like this?” At which point, she just
kind of ectoplasmically changes the subject.
There’s
a rather artistically realized sequence outside the bar in the rain that night.
Bob and Kansas have been tipped off that the vengeful gambler’s set to ambush
them in the dark. They move forward out of camera range; we hear two shots –
then the screen cuts to a tombstone that reads, “Here Lies Fancy Joe – He Called
the Wrong Hand”. Neat.
Enter
B western vet Eddie Dunn, who here looks like William S. Hart. He’s Rand, a
cattle rustler with a yen for Goldie. And, oh yes, Emilio Fernandez is on board again; this time he’s just
extraneous atmosphere - one of the rustlers, unimaginatively named Pancho. About now we, Rand and Bob all discover that
Goldie’s actually wanted for murder; she’s fled to Mexico (so we are in Mexico; that semi-explains those
tamales - and makes French Sadie a kind of precursor to Marlene Dietrich’s European
transplant Tanya {from “Touch of Evil”}, but with no Orson Welles to feed her
chili to). Anyway, for various reasons, neither
Rand nor Bob tell Goldie when they find out from a sideline character that she’s
been exonerated and could go back Stateside anytime. We can’t tell her because she’s in the movie and we’re not. So
Goldie’s left to continue vacantly sweating it out south of the border.
There
are a few entertaining bits and bobs of dialogue. Rand finishes one of his longer speeches with the
words “That’s all she wrote -as
Shakespeare says – there ain’t no more”. When Bob presents Goldie with a gift
(a demure good-girl dress) she gives the oddest pronunciation I’ve ever heard
of the word “beautiful’. I can’t even describe it. When Rand – jealous but still droll – sees the
frock, he says, “Ain’t ya gonna put it on? We can go to a prayer meetin’ ".
Motivations
are very cloudy in this movie – the actors definitely look as if they could use
some help that’s never forthcoming. Anyway, Goldie agrees to run off with Rand
– but she’s actually doing it to protect Bob from him. There’s a very murky
cattle rustling segment which clarifies little – except for confirming that Bob’s
actually an undercover lawman. He and Rand have a perfunctory shoot-out (this
movie’s not big on action). Rand doesn’t survive. Apparently Kansas walked into a stray bullet
during that confused cattle rustling section. So he gets a death scene, wishing
his bosom friend Bob good luck in his new life with Goldie. It’s supposed to be
sad but since Kansas has acted all along like the kind of nosy
alcoholic uncle you just can’t get away from, the audience feels no pangs. Now
that Bob’s finally told Goldie she’s no longer wanted for murder, she can
revert to her north of the border good girl identity (name: Beth). And hopefully Beth
can summon up a little more energy than Goldie.