Outlaw Women (1952)

This is obviously a short, low budget novelty film, but for what it is it's actually pretty good. A doctor is kidnapped and taken to a town controlled by women (and especially by the saloon owner). Some male outlaws arrive in town looking for information about money they can steal. A local bigwig from a nearby town—with a past romantic history with the saloon owner—turns up, looking to muscle in on the action. A bit of double-crossing later and the men and the women all team up to fend off the bandits, providing what is possibly a positive and uplifting moral message about how the two genders can work together, or something.

In general, the plot's reasonably good with something always going on, the setting's unusual, the film is obviously a bit cheap (taking place mostly in one saloon set), and the film is short enough that it doesn't overstay its welcome. In a nice surprise, the comic-relief (a mishap prone gunfighter and a snake-oil salesman turned unwilling-bartender) is actually pretty amusing.

The downside is main that the film isn't entirely clear on what it's trying to achieve in terms of social comment. The women are shown in a good light generally and depicted as just as capable as the men, but there's always a subtle undertone that all they really want is a good man in their lives (see the ending, for the biggest example). One of the heroine's has a brief competition with her sister over the affections of the doctor, is told by her sister that she needs to wear a pretty dress to attract the doctor, and low-and-behold, the pretty dress works.

The UK DVD (Odeon) has some obvious print damage, miscolouration and interlacing, but is watchable and probably as good as this film is going to get in the immediate future. My suspicion is that the US DVD is basically the same (see the page on the "Darn Good Westerns box set" for a bit more discussion.

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