Hindi The Iron Mistress

Hindi The Iron Mistress

In 1825, Jim Bowie travels to New Orleans to sell the output from the sawmill he runs with his brothers. He soon meets the beautiful Judalon de Bornay who seems to have most men wrapped around her little finger. She clearly likes him but when he tells her he's leaving, she manipulates one of her beaus into challenging him for a duel. Bowie survives the confrontation but devises a plan to sell the not only his lumber but also the family mill and invest it in land. Within a couple of years, the Bowie brothers are quite rich and Jim meets Judalon again - only this time she is married. It doesn't stop her from manipulating those around her. Jim's business interests lead to a bloody duel where several people are killed and a confrontation with local saloon owner and crook Black Jack Sturdevant. After Sturdevant tries to kill him on the trail, Bowie is rescued by a beautiful Mexican woman and decides to make his home in Texas.
The life of nineteenth-century pioneer Jim Bowie is portrayed.
The Iron Mistress (1952)<br/><br/>I don&#39;t get the whole call of honor that leads to duels at the slightest provocation (or less). In some movies it&#39;s a fabulous dramatic point, but here it&#39;s a nagging and recurring trick, a reason for some male chest-thumping and a little bloodshed. It also represents the way the movie depends on forced drama to make the events jump. <br/><br/>There are exceptions, like a really beautiful and unusual hand-to-hand knife/sword fight occurring in a darkened room, with an occasional bolt of lightning like a strobe going off. This is cinema trickery, a real pleasure, not part of the real story, but it&#39;s a moment of relief from the costume drama and dueling the rest of the time.<br/><br/>This is how this movie goes. Moments of unique drama are followed by long stretches of stiff plot development. I&#39;m not sure how the movie reflects the real story of James Bowie, whose name was given to the famous Bowie knife (knives naturally have a big role in the movie, including the forging of the first true Bowie knife). But what works best is the sense of period sets and time-travel to pre-Civil War Louisiana. The romance isn&#39;t highly romantic, and the plot is generally stiff, but it is a kind of history story come to life. If you overlook the obvious liberties and gaffes, it&#39;s not an unwatchable movie, just a routine one. Alan Ladd, it must be said, is a little cool even for Alan Ladd (an understated actor). <br/><br/>The film does lay out the gradual shift in cultivation of the South to cotton farming, and brings out lots of old rules like the fact divorce was impossible in Louisiana without an act of the legislature. People interested in this certain kind of movie making, for its own sake, should check out &quot;Drums Along the Mohawk&quot; (a better movie by far, but with a similar feel somehow). Here, the camera-work by the talented John Seitz is strangely dull (though it is in true Technicolor), and the scored music by the incomparable Max Steiner is straight up functional. Most of all, the many ordinary parts are put together without great art or intensity.
I&#39;ve never really been a fan of westerns, I didn&#39;t grow up with them and I always thought the genre was overrated personally.<br/><br/>Occasionally however a film comes along which has distinct appeal despite its genre, this is such a film. I&#39;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&#39; (1956, Spencer Tracy, Robert Wagner), it is a film which I believe has that same intangible quality.<br/><br/>I&#39;d recommend this one for both western fan and non western fan (like myself) alike.

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