Western RoundUp: The Maverick Queen (1956)

The Maverick Queen (1956)

Barbara Stanwyck is a favorite of many classic film fans, myself included.

Over the years I’ve reviewed a few of her films here after seeing them for the first time: The Furies (1950), The Violent Men (1955), and Forty Guns (1957).

One of the Stanwyck Westerns which had eluded me until now was The Maverick Queen (1956), which had a VHS release but to my knowledge has not come out on DVD in the United States.

The movie has turned up in the past on Turner Classic Movies, but in a frankly poor print, so I’ve held off watching it, hoping for the day when a better viewing experience would be possible. I’m happy to report that day has now arrived thanks to Kino Lorber Studio Classics.

Stanwyck stars as Kit Bannion, owner of the Maverick Queen saloon, who is mixed up with outlaws including Butch Cassidy (Howard Petrie) and the Sundance Kid (Scott Brady). Her fortune has depended cattle rustling and stealing.

Stanwyck’s Forty Guns costar, Barry Sullivan – previously reviewed here in the terrific Audie Murphy film Seven Ways From Sundown (1950) – plays a stranger in town, Jeff Young.

Kit, fending off Sundance’s threatening romantic claim, is attracted to Jeff and hires him as a dealer.  She believes he’s Jeff Younger of the Younger gang of outlaws, but he might not be exactly who he seems to be.

For instance, why did Jeff stop Sundance and a group of outlaws from robbing the cattle herd owned by pretty Lucy Lee (Mary Murphy) just before he arrived in town?

Jeff does join Butch and Sundance for a train robbery, which leads to unexpected developments…

Those who associate Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid chiefly with the 1969 movie may be a bit surprised to see them turn up in a ‘50s Western, but of course they were based on real people and turned up in films well ahead of 1969.  In fact, I stopped at Butch Cassidy’s boyhood home in Utah during a 2022 road trip. It was about a half hour outside Marysvale, where I visited the final resting place of actress Marie Windsor.

The Maverick Queen screenplay by Kenneth Gamet and DeVallon Scott was based on a Zane Grey novel, and it’s quite good.  Ironically I had heard buzz over the years that The Maverick Queen was a weak film in Stanwyck’s career, so I was pleasantly surprised to discover I liked it very much. 

I found The Maverick Queen better scripted and more interesting than the typical “outlaws” film, which isn’t my favorite Western subgenre.  In fact, I would go so far as to say I enjoyed it more than Stanwyck’s much better-known and highly regarded The Furies. I’m not saying The Maverick Queen is a better film, but I had more fun watching it.

No, The Maverick Queen isn’t a classic, but it does fall in the category many of us call a “darn good Western.”  It has a good story, is well cast, and was energetically directed by Joe Kane, who also produced; it runs a well-paced 92 minutes.

Perhaps most importantly the film features extensive location shooting in Colorado, which really makes the movie; it’s beautiful to look at.

The movie was filmed by Jack Marta in Republic Pictures’ color and widescreen processes, Trucolor and Naturama. The movie has thus looked terrible in many faded pan-and-scan prints. Kino Lorber presents a 4K scan of the original 35mm camera negative, and it looks fantastic.

Red-haired Stanwyck plays a woman who has succeeded in a man’s world by attaching herself to criminal enterprises.  Though Stanwyck famously played at least one more villainous character in her career, there’s very little admirable about Kit, so it seems likely from the outset that her feelings for Jeff are doomed.

Stanwyck’s character may be a crook but the actress is, of course, always highly watchable, and unsurprisingly she makes the part interesting and somewhat sympathetic.

The theme of Kit making her way in the world on the wrong side of the law contrasts nicely with Murphy’s young cattlewoman Lucy, who is working to make a go of her late father’s ranch; life is also challenging for her, but she is making far different choices from Kit’s and ultimately will likely succeed in both business and life because of it.

Murphy, incidentally, was in one of my favorite Westerns, A Man Alone (1955), which I wrote about in a column on “Unexpected Western Leads.” She was something of a chameleon, in terms of her physical appearance, and looks rather different in each film despite the fact they were released only a year apart.

I admit to having a bit of a crush on Sullivan, who is very appealing here as the mysterious stranger in town.  Although his motivations aren’t initially clear, I shared Lucy’s faith that there must be an explanation for his inexplicable behavior.

Brady, who impresses here as a rugged, vicious Sundance, played the similarly named but more handsome “Dancin’ Kid” in Johnny Guitar (1954).  You don’t want to mess with his Sundance; Brady’s fierce portrayal conjures mental associations with his real-life scarier brother, Lawrence Tierney.

The rest of the cast is top-notch, starting with Jim Davis, whose character’s brief appearance quite late in the film is inconvenient for Jeff, to say the least. 

Wallace Ford plays Lucy’s ornery cook, who proves to be not what he seems, and the cast is rounded out with familiar faces such as Emile Meyer, Walter Sande, John Doucette, Pierre Watkin, Taylor Holmes, and Tristram Coffin.

The film’s musical score was by the great Victor Young, who very sadly died shortly after this film’s release.  The title song is sung by Joni James.

Kino Lorber’s Blu-ray extras consist of a commentary track by Dwayne Epstein plus a gallery of five trailers for other films available from Kino Lorber.

I found The Maverick Queen to be a pleasantly entertaining surprise, and I doubt it will ever look better than on this Blu-ray release, which I recommend.

The color Utah photographs accompanying this article are from the author’s personal collection.

Thanks to Kino Lorber for providing a review copy of this Blu-ray.

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– Laura Grieve for Classic Movie Hub

Laura can be found at her blog, Laura’s Miscellaneous Musings, where she’s been writing about movies since 2005, and on Twitter at @LaurasMiscMovie. A lifelong film fan, Laura loves the classics including Disney, Film Noir, Musicals, and Westerns.  She regularly covers Southern California classic film festivals.  Laura will scribe on all things western at the ‘Western RoundUp’ for CMH.