With a title referencing star Clark Gable’s reputation as The King of Hollywood, The King and Four Queens is an offbeat western from legendary director Raoul Walsh.
Clark Gable stars as smooth talking drifter Dan Kehoe who rides into the ramshackle, lawless town of Wagon Mound with the intention of relieving Ma McDade (Jo Van Fleet) and her four widowed daughter-in-laws (Eleanor Parker, Jean Willes, Barbara Nichols & Sara Slade) of $100,000 worth of stolen gold. Romancing each of the ladies in order to learn the whereabouts of the stash, it become apparent that the queens are using him as much as he is using them.
With it tough talking, gun totting matriarch, The King and Four Queens is a little reminiscent of cult western Johnny Guitar (Nicholas Ray, 1954). While it subtly plays with the notions of masculinity, director Raoul Walsh never takes his movie to the same levels of subversion as Ray’s weird and wonderful gem.
Performances are strong from Gable and his female co-stars, particularly Eleanor Parker. It is amusing (and a little anti-feminist) to see the four man-hungry McDade women lusting after Gable, the first male to enter the house in two years! I get the feeling that this portrayal would be vastly different were the movie made in 2020! Yet it is presented with humour and sense of being just a little bit tongue in cheek.
The King and Four Queens is a handsome movie, benefiting greatly from Lucien Ballard’s beautiful DeLuxe Color, CinemaScope photography, shot against dramatic Utah locations. It is quite a slow moving movie; not a great deal happens, but it is never dull. Its various twists unfold nicely and at just shy of 90 minutes it doesn’t outstay its welcome. A little known entry on the Clark Gable resume this may be, but it is a movie well worth seeking out.
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