Springfield Rifle (1952)

(On Cable TV, May 2021) I’m not enough of a western fan to pay much attention when the films struggle to break out of the classic mould of the genre. Springfield Rifle eventually does, but it’s a long slog to the film’s twist, and the twist isn’t a twist as much as it’s a return to expectations. Let me explain: Here we have none other than western stalwart Gary Cooper (he of rugged but bland presence), except that he’s playing a no-good coward drummed out of the army and abandoned by his ashamed family. Left without anywhere to go, he goes west to end up in a fort where there’s some illegal weapon contraband… and then comes the twist that he’s really an undercover spy trying to stop the flow of rifles to the Confederates during the Civil War. So… Cooper is really playing a hero, which is really a return to form rather than a surprise. The rest of the film, despite an admittedly unusual amount of spying business in the middle of a western, does remain very much a western, and not always a gripping one at that. The 1950s were a high-water mark for westerns in Hollywood but remarkably few of them are worth mentioning today: there were a lot of them, and the better ones have floated to the top. While Springfield Rifle is probably one of those that has endured (mostly due to the star, reaffirmed by the twist), I’m so indifferent to the genre that it quickly becomes close to background noise.