ARIZONA

There are several things about ARIZONA (1940) that lift it above the category of a routine Western. To begin with, it's a proto-feminist film with actress Jean Arthur receiving top billing. Granted, she was older and a more established star than co-star William Holden but the film is hers from beginning to end. There's a nifty up screen title credit crawl that surely must have influenced George Lucas when he made STAR WARS in 1977. It took two cinematographers to shoot the film, Fayte Browne and Harry Hallenberger, one of them handling exteriors, while the other was in charge of interiors. Composer Victor Young received an Academy Award nomination for Original Music Score (which plays heavily on the musical motif of the old song "I Dream of Jeannie"). And finally, the small town set for old Tucson was built for this film outside of the real Tucson and remains standing to this day. It has been used in countless television shows and Western films.

ARIZONA is the story of Phoebe Titus (Arthur), a flinty young woman determined to make her fortune in the wild and rugged Arizona territory of 1861. She has her sights set on owning a ranch and is working towards that goal by baking and selling pies to the citizens of Tucson. But she needs more money than the pie business can generate so Phoebe goes into a partnership with Solomon Warner (Paul Harvey), who runs a freight business.

Phoebe meets young Peter Muncie (Holden), who rides into town with a wagon train of settlers. She offers him a job running freight for her but Muncie declines (despite his attraction to Phoebe), because of his wanderlust and desire to go see California first before settling in Arizona. Muncie rides away from Tucson and out of the picture for a good while as director Wesley Ruggles doesn't follow him to the west coast. The action remains on Phoebe and her struggles in Tucson.

Phoebe becomes involved with Jefferson Carteret (Warren William), a smooth talking con artist who secretly robs Phoebe of her money for the ranch and then loans it back to her. Carteret is a mustache-twirling, Snidely Whiplash villain from the old school. In this case, he literally DOES own the deed to her ranch. By the way, William would have made a terrific Lamont Cranston if any studio had chosen to produce a source material accurate feature film version of the pulp hero The Shadow in 1940.

Muncie returns from California as a Union solider. The romance is rekindled and a marriage is planned but first, Phoebe asks Muncie to ride to Nebraska to buy 500 head of cattle for her ranch. He obliges and once again leaves the film for a good portion of running time. We don't see him again until he returns with the cattle only to be challenged by a band of Apaches (employed by Carteret) who try to steal the beeves. The cattle are saved and Phoebe and Muncie are finally married but there's still a score to settle with Carteret. Phoebe begs Muncie to let the law (in the laughable form of Judge Bogardus (Edgar Buchanan)) handle the problem but this being the old West, Muncie is determined to mete out his own form of frontier justice.

A gunfight between Muncie and Carteret is set up but once again, director Ruggles cuts away from Muncie and the action to a tight close-up on Phoebe's face, strained with apprehension and worry, while she hears a series of gun shots in the street outside of the general store. We don't know who the victor of the gunfight is until a wounded Muncie appears in the doorway. It's interesting that instead of showing one of the genre's most established tropes (the gunfight in the street), Ruggles stays focused on Phoebe instead, emphasizing once again that this is her story.

Still, as liberated a woman as Phoebe clearly is, she still has to rely on a man with a gun to save her from financial ruin. Once Carteret is killed, Phoebe and Muncie are finally free to begin their new life together on her beautiful new ranch.

William Holden was in his early 20s when he made ARIZONA. He was a young actor establishing his credentials in Hollywood while Jean Arthur was a well established (and much older) star. Arthur is lovingly shot through soft filters throughout the film in an effort to disguise her years. The trick works (mostly), and she comes off as a lovely, feisty and determined woman who lets nothing stand in the way of her dream.

ARIZONA is a rousing, old-fashioned Western adventure with a solid cast and first rate production values. Recommended.