Angel And The Badman (Image)

Hal Roach Studios presents a Republic picture...

After a decade of burgeoning stardom, John Wayne crossed an important line in 1946 with his assumption of the title of Line Producer on his epic Republic western, Angel And The Badman.The granting of such an arrangement by the studio was demonstrative of an obvious feeling of mutual obligation and gratitude which must have existed between the two parties.For Wayne was certainly big enought by this time to garner a huge salary at any of the "major" studios, and Republic had proven with Gene Autry that the studio wasn't terribly enthusiastic about diluting either its authority or its ownership of its motion pictures. But, both sides came together and, in the era of exploding independent production, kept the Duke under the Republic eagle for a few more extravaganzas.

Angel And The Badman is an American Western in the classic sense, with great struggles between Good and Evil played out on God's canvas under a Colorado sky.Against this backdrop, the redemption of an all-around bad fellow, Quirt Evan, (Wayne) is sought by an innocent Quaker girl (Russell), who nurses him back to health after his near-fatal shooting in a fight over a mining claim.He eventually finds himself in the crucible, and must make the fundamental personal choice between life's two polarities; in this case, represented on the one hand by murder and revenge upon those who would steal his mine and injure the girl, and on the other hand by the ideals by which the girl has chosen to live her life and give him her unconditional love.

The dramatic conclusion is wrapped up by Harry Carey, in an obvious studio-shot afterthought, with the still-relevant observation that "only a man who has a gun ever needs one."

The great film critic James Agee called Angel And The Badman ...unpretentious, sweet-tempered, and quite likeable", an assessment which is still meritorioius today, almost five decades later.Indeed, this is the quintessential John Wayne western adventure; This is America.