The Iron Mistress (1952)

one of my absolute favorites!

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

In this film, Alan Ladd is Jim Bowie, who comes to New Orleans to sell timber from the rural family farm in Louisiana. He wins some money, get all decked out in the finest fashion, meets and falls for the beautiful but treacherous Virginia Mayo, and fights or witnesses innumerable duels with knives, sword, and pistols.We follow him through business deals too, in which he makes a good deal of money gambling and trading things and speculating on land values. He keeps running into Virginia Mayo, which is not a bad idea in itself, but she deliberately lures him on and then dumps him for someone with more power, money, or breeding. Finally, he wises up. Two things have gotten him in trouble over the years -- Miss Virginia Mayo and that damned knife of his, supposedly forged out of meteorite iron; the knife, that is, not Miss Virginia Mayo, though she might have been. He blows off both of these trouble makers and marries a beautiful Mexican woman.I'm not a historian, but Wikipedia is available to everyone. That beautiful Mexican girl was Ursula Veramendi. She was the daughter of a powerful politician. Bowie promised to pay the family more than a quarter of a million dollars for the privilege but he lied about the land he owned. He lied about his age too. Ursula was nineteen and Bowie claimed to be thirty, although he was actually thirty-five.And here's how he made some of his money. It was illegal to import slaves into Louisiana, though not illegal to own or sell them. A reward, equal to half the value of the slaves, was given to anyone informing on slave importers. So Bowie would buy illegally imported slaves from a pirate, turn himself in as an illegal importer, and get half the value of the slaves as a reward for turning himself in. Then he would use the money legally to buy slaves for himself. A regular entrepreneur.None of this is in the movie, nor should it be. This is Hollywood's buffed-up version of the life of a man who started out poor and naive about women, but who finally won both a fortune and the love of a nice girl. He's a hero. At the fade out, he and Ursula are kneeling in church and being married. The Alamo is never mentioned. The Independence movement isn't mentioned either.Ladd, the principal figure, is ligneous. This wooden quality served him well in "Shane," where his character was supposed to be reserved, guarded about himself and his past, deliberate in thought and movement. Here, he's rather dull. Nothing much can be said for Virginia Mayo's performance either. She was fine as a Goldwyn Girl, the heroine of light-hearted action movies, and even as floozies in "The Best Years of Our Lives" and "White Heat." This is supposed to be a dramatic role and her problem is the opposite of Ladd's. She over acts. When her face is snuggled up next to his, Ladd's features are vacant while hers are twisted with gleeful deceit.The costumes and appointments are colorful and impressive. This is Southern society in 1830. Nobody's clothes are wrinkled or dirty. At least some of the duels we see really happened. Dueling lasted much longer in the South than it did in the North. New England was settled by Roundheads -- uptight, very religious, practical people with community commitments. The South was settled by Cavaliers, willing to take chances, to risk things, given to action rather than introspection, and they brought with them a culture of honor. It could be argued that the higher homicide rates in southern states are a relic of that tradition, what anthropologists call "the founder effect".But never mind all that. The film is strictly routine entertainment. It's Alan Ladd in fancy clothes trying to make out with Virginia Mayo and sometimes getting into fights. That's about it. Would this movie have been made if Jim Bowie's name had been Marmaduke Cherkovitz?

Great Movie.. with the legendary Character Jim Bowie, and the legendary Knive, and how it came to be.Tales of how Jim Bowie came to become the legend; and how not to fall for the wrong women.If only he had listen to his brother/s and family about his love. Alan Ladd was excellent in this, as was Virgina Mayo....and he rest of the cast.Great movie. It really is.Is this released as a DVD yet? Please can someone tell me...???? I would love to get this film on DVDMaybe even this film could be remade for a new generation with even more detail given to how the knife was made etc, etcBut who would star????

This is an adventure story using fiction to tell about the early years of James Bowie,prior to his martyrdom at the Alamo a few years after this film ends. This is a typical romantic adventure story with Alan Ladd giving an erstwhile honest portrayal in the role that Richard Widmark did years later in THE ALAMO. Mr Ladd was short in stature,but you would never really know that,. as all of the actors were either his height or 1 or 2 inches either way. Virginia Mayo is as usual very beautiful & well dressed,She was never considered a great actress but she could portray a very selfish woman with perfect ease. The rest of the cast is just what you would expect in this type of vehicle. Good production values with a very good knife fight in a dark room with only lightning bolts to highlight the action. A bit long at 112 minutes, but entertaining. a low *** rating or a 7 on the IMDB scale as always Jay Harris.

I've never really been a fan of westerns, I didn't grow up with them and I always thought the genre was overrated personally.Occasionally however a film comes along which has distinct appeal despite its genre, this is such a film. I'm not 100% sure why I liked it or why it stood out from the pack, there is a certain intangible aspect to it which really appeals; the closest thing that I can think of is `The Mountain' (1956, Spencer Tracy, Robert Wagner), it is a film which I believe has that same intangible quality.I'd recommend this one for both western fan and non western fan (like myself) alike.