Robert Taylor, a Hollywood workhorse if there ever was one, NEVER in over 30 years on the screen, put in a bad performance or one in which he failed to give everything he had--from heavily romantic roles, to fatuous 1930s comedies to Westerns to Toga & Sandal monstrosities to crime dramas and---you name it. And always to the level best of his ability. William Wellman, a crack director and one very, very tough and world-experienced hombre, said Taylor was the finest man he ever knew. But the problem Taylor faced in The Devil's Doorway was absolutely insurmontable, even for him. American Indians are Asiatics (which is abundantly clear from the many Indian faces which appear in the movie (not including his father, played by a Caucasian)). No one in the whole wide world looks less Asiatic or more Caucasian than Robert Taylor (with the possible exception of Burt Lancaster, who also, moronically, got saddled with a Noble Indian role). Indeed, in the original version of this movie, which was in color, blue-eyed Robert Taylor had the dubious distinction of playing the only full-blooded blue-eyed Shoshone in the history of the world. Throughout the movie all the experienced moviegoer could think while watching it was "There's Ol' Bob Taylor in blackface." It was like watching Louis Armstrong in whiteface. Ridiculous. Also, his English was without accent and clearly educated, upper-middle class White (mirroring what Taylor in fact was)---how could that possibly be?---while his Shoshone was limited to a few barked, incomplete commands. Nevertheless, Taylor did his usual faultless, yeoman-like job against hopeless credibility odds. The photography was outstanding, Paula Raymond---who, by the way, could not, as a woman, have been licensed to practice law---was breathtakingly beautiful (what ever happened to her?), and Louis Calhern, as always, was excellent. As for the story, that is something else again. Childish, good-guy spirit-loving, earth-loving Indians versus bad-guy avaricious, violent Caucasians. Yawn. That is not the way it was. The Indians did all but teach university-level courses in Violence and Avarice---which they practiced extensively on one another before and after the arrival of the Whites. But that's for another time.
Review of Devil's Doorway
