Bullwhip (1958)

Bullwhip starts well, with a Frankie Laine sung theme-song (which I always consider a plus). From there the plot descends into slight unbelievably—with a hard-nose woman freight-line owner (Rhonda Fleming) forced into marrying a soon-to-be executed convict (Guy Madison) to appease her dead father's will and then the convict promptly escaping, tracking her down and taking over her company—before finally improving with a reasonably satisfying ending.

The story is nominally based on The Taming of the Shrew (although admittedly I'm only familiar with the McLintock adaptation rather than the original source). In many ways the love-story part of the film works well enough, it's just the set-up that seems contrived. There's just too many unanswered questions: why does she have to marry him, why the elaborate plot to kill him after releasing him, why does everyone in her company just accept his authority when they apparently live in fear of her, why does she have so many fancy dresses to hand on the wagon-train for when she decides she's going to trick him by pretending to be ladylike? The list goes on.

However, for all these complaints, I think I enjoyed it. I'm just not sure why.