Alicia I love this movie so much

ThedevilChoose When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

Janae Milner Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.

Kayden This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

chaswe-28402 This story compresses many years, many lives and widely separated events into one narrative. It is mainly, if vaguely, based on the life and death of Wild Bill Hickok, 1837-1876, known in Harper's New Monthly Magazine as Hitchcock, and as having killed "hundreds of men". No relation. Hickok is portrayed by Gary Cooper. He checks in to a barbershop, where the barber tries to get him to cut his hair. He says he doesn't believe in getting his hair cut. Oddly, it's already quite short, in a style suitable for 1936. There are nevertheless many photographs of the real Wild Bill, in all of which he is shown with hair tumbling well below his shoulders. Not Cooper's favoured style.Is there any message in this mash-up of a movie ? Could it be that while he inspires calamitous fandom from the fair sex, the true gunman, and noble he-man, is essentially misogynistic ? This doesn't save him, though. He's fated for aces and eights, the dead man's hand, and gets shot in the back. The reason Buffalo Bill survives is because he weds a little woman, and intends, improbably, to run a civilised hotel, and do the washing up. Actually, I thought he ran a Wild West Show. No matter.This film is designed to entertain, and it does. It features an interesting antique mechanical cocktail shaker. Those were the days when America was great, but tragically undermined by internal political corruption and proliferating guns. Seems familiar. All the prominent Indians, except Mexican Anthony Quinn, were white men in war paint, and spoke with forked tongues, especially when setting out to trap the cavalry.

wes-connors At the close of the US Civil War, girl-shy Gary Cooper (as "Wild" Bill Hickok), fellow frontiersman James Ellison (as "Buffalo" Bill Cody), and feisty blonde Jean Arthur (as "Calamity" Jane Canary) battle Native American Indians and greedy gunrunner Charles Bickford (as John Lattimer). Mr. Ellison handles himself exceptionally well alongside Mr. Cooper, already a huge box office star, and young Helen Burgess (as Louisa) does well in the debut of her unfortunately brief film career. Speaking with forked-tongues, young Anthony Quinn and George "Gabby" Hayes have small but notable roles as an Injun and victim. The film starts by helpfully disclaiming, "The story that follows compresses many years, many lives, and widely separated events into one narrative - in an attempt to do justice to the courage of The Plainsman of our west." This film is far from historically accurate. While mannered and obvious, the handsome production benefits from beautiful visual framing by director Cecil B. DeMille and the Paramount studios crew.****** The Plainsman (11/16/36) Cecil B. DeMille ~ Gary Cooper, Jean Arthur, James Ellison, Charles Bickford

Nick Zegarac (movieman-200) "The Plainsman" represents the directorial prowess of Cecil B. DeMille at its most inaccurate and un-factual. It sets up parallel plots for no less stellar an entourage than Wild Bill Hickok (Gary Cooper), Buffalo Bill Cody (James Ellison), Calamity Jane (Jean Arthur), George Armstrong Custer and Abraham Lincoln to interact, even though in reality Lincoln was already dead at the time the story takes place. Every once in a while DeMille floats dangerously close toward the truth, but just as easily veers away from it into unabashed spectacle and showmanship. The film is an attempt to buttress Custer's last stand with a heap of fiction that is only loosely based on the lives of people, who were already the product of manufactured stuffs and legends. Truly, this is the world according to DeMille - a zeitgeist in the annals of entertainment, but a pretty campy relic by today's standards.TRANSFER: Considering the vintage of the film, this is a moderately appealing transfer, with often clean whites and extremely solid blacks. There's a considerable amount of film grain in some scenes and an absence of it at other moments. All in all, the image quality is therefore somewhat inconsistent, but it is never all bad or all good – just a bit better than middle of the road. Age related artifacts are kept to a minimum and digital anomalies do not distract. The audio is mono but nicely balanced.EXTRAS: Forget it. It's Universal! BOTTOM LINE: As pseudo-history painted on celluloid, this western is compelling and fun. Just take its characters and story with a grain of salt – in some cases – a whole box seems more appropriate!

Tashtago Sure this movie is not historically accurate but it is great entertainment. Most DeMille pictures especially the later epics are slow and plodding but the action here moves at a clip. The story is basically a series of peaks with very little quiet moments. The action takes us from an Indian raid on a cabin; one of the best parts of the movie with Jean Arthur excellent while attempting to appease the war-painted natives. This is followed by her and Cooper being taken to the war camp and being tortured. Later comes a protracted battle with the Cheyenne. The whole thing is ridiculous but great fun and entertaining from start to finish. Jean Arthur is one of the best actresses of this era and she shines here.