Dakota (1945)

• Year: 1945
• Released: 25 Dec 1945
• Country: United States
• IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0037627/
• Rotten Tomatoes: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/dakota
• Metacritics: https://www.metacritic.com/movie/dakota
• Available in: 720p, 1080p,
• Language: English, Italian
• MPA Rating: Passed
• Genre: Western
• Runtime: 82 min
• Writer: Lawrence Hazard, Howard Estabrook, Carl Foreman
• Director: Joseph Kane
• Cast: John Wayne, Vera Ralston, Walter Brennan
• Keywords: river, farmer, railroad, dakota, wheat,

	5.9/10
	14% – Critics
	80% – Audience

Dakota Storyline

In 1871, professional gambler John Devlin elopes with Sandra “Sandy” Poli, daughter of Marko Poli, an immigrant who has risen to railroad tycoon. Sandy, knowing that the railroad is to be extended into Dakota, plans to use their $20,000 nest egg to buy land options to sell to the railroad at a profit. On the stage trip to Ft. Abercrombie, their fellow passengers are Jim Bender and Bigtree Collins, who practically own the town of Fargo and Devlin is aware that they are prepared to protect the little empire… trying to drive out the farmers by burning their property, destroying their wheat, and blaming the devastation on the Indians. Continuing their journey north on the river aboard the “River Bird’, Sandy and John meet Captain Bounce, an irascible old seafarer. Two of Bendender’s henchmen, Slagin and Carp, board the boat and relieve John of his $20,000 at gunpoint. Captain Bounce, chasing the robber’s dinghy, wrecks his boat on a sandbar. At Fargo, the land wars begin and John teams with the wheat farmers against the Bender gang. Several attempts are made on his life and Collins tries to frame him for murder.

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Dakota Movie Reviews

sub-par John Wayne

This is one of the worst John Wayne flicks of the 1940s. By this point in his career, Wayne was now a star and deserved better material and a better leading lady. If you compare this film with THEY WERE EXPENDABLE, which came out the same year, the contrast is great. DAKOTA is simply a B-western with lousy and very confusing writing. While it has good supporting actors in Ward Bond and Mike Mazurki, Vera Ralston as Wayne’s wife is incredibly wooden and she sports a bizarre accent that can’t be accounted for in the script (her dad seemed like he had a French accent and she was Czechoslovakian). Most of the time, she’s kind of pretty to look at, but becomes more of an annoyance than anything else. It was hard to figure WHY Wayne would have married such an idiot in the first place! The only reasons she got ANY roles is that her lover was the head of Republic Pictures–otherwise, she was much more of a liability than an asset. As I already mentioned, the plot is completely convoluted–and I really had to struggle to figure out what was going on. Part of this COULD have been because the movie just wasn’t engaging. This is a forgettable film and only of interest to big fans of John Wayne. There are so many better Wayne films available–try watching one of them first.

Effective black and white settler western with John Wayne

DAKOTA is a surprisingly decent John Wayne western, well-shot in 1945 and featuring the famous actor playing a small-time gambler who elopes with his love to the West, only to discover that his intended homestead is controlled by a pair of criminals who are up to all kinds of no good in order to keep an iron grip on the land. Conflict ensues.

Despite some indifferent reviews, I thought this film told its story very effectively and with a maximum of intrigue and excitement. Wayne gives a fine fine and assured performance as the smooth hero and Vera Ralston matches him as a love interest you can get behind. Ward Bond and Mike Mazurki make an imposing couple of villains and the rest of the cast is full of familiar faces and/or larger than life characters. There’s not really a wealth of action here, but that which does occur is great fun; the hold up on the river boat and the climactic shoot-out are the highlights.

Enjoyable old western

I thoroughly enjoyed this early movie with John Wayne. He was very good in his part I thought. He was truly becoming the guy most Americans Identify with. I read elsewhere that movies Vera Ralston appeared in did not make money. I’m not sure why unless Americans just had a hard time with her accent. She was lovely, acted her part well, even added a good degree of humor from time to time. This movie was released on Christmas day 1945. I wonder if folks were so happy to have the war over and short of cash that they passed on the movie for those two reasons. John was well liked by then so he should have been a box office draw,0 and Vera was not well known such that she would be a deterrent.

Anyway, I liked it. Hope you do too.

I found it on Youtube. It had two or three short commercials, just a bit distracting not too bad.