He'd already been a pirate and an outlaw for director Michael Curtiz, but in 1939 Errol Flynn was cast in the rather unexpected role of sheriff Wade Hatton in Dodge City, part of the western boom of 1939.<br /><br />Dodge City is home to practically every western genre cliché in existence  cattle drives, covered wagons, lynch mobs, bar brawls and so on. It's been remarked that at the time these weren't clichés, they were fresh ideas. But that would be to forget pictures such as The Big Trail (1931), The Plainsman (1936), not to mention a host of silent westerns, in which all these typical goings on were well established. This isn't a criticism  after all genres are built on clichés, and there's no shame in that. Dodge City merely appears to have been intended as a kind of rough homage to the western rather than trying to take the genre anywhere new. These Flynn/De Havilland/Curtiz pictures were never meant to be anything more than simple fun. If you're casting Errol Flynn in his first western after audiences have accepted him as Robin Hood and Captain Blood, you're not going to make something like Stagecoach.<br /><br />Having said all that, in spite of its lack of depth, Dodge City truly is a quintessential western in that its underlying theme is the most common idea that unites virtually every western ever made  the friction between the old and the new, and the forging of the American civilization. This is set up in the very first scene, in which a stagecoach and a steam train try to race each other. As the picture progresses, the point is made that the price of progress is lawlessness, and that the taming of the wilderness must be coupled with justice, education and order.<br /><br />Dodge City also represents the high point (or should that be low point?) of Hays Code moralism in the western. At this time Hollywood was desperate to ensure the outlaws remained villains, and that no crime went without punishment, and this is one of the strongest statements of that. In his struggle to clean up the frontier town, Flynn is virtually a puritan, not to mention a strict authoritarian. The lines of good and evil are as stark as in any of his earlier adventures. The trouble is the western genre lacks the right feel that makes such fairytale ethics enjoyable. You can accept the hissable villain and dashing, perfect hero in an over-the-top swashbuckler movie, but in the old west setting they don't seem to work so well.<br /><br />Errol Flynn would later play some great roles in westerns (for example, They Died with Their Boots On), but here he is really just playing Robin Hood in a Stetson, and only the vaguest attempt at an American accent (although, like Captain Blood, he's supposed to be an Irishman here, making his plummy English tones even more bizarre). Dodge City also features one of the weaker Alan Hale sidekick roles. He's a bit too much of a bumbling oaf for the majority of the picture, then suddenly becomes incredibly competent and authoritative out of the blue for action scenes. There are no real standout performances, and even great character actors like Henry Travers and Victor Jory are underused here.<br /><br />Still, the Michael Curtiz mark of quality is definitely here. The big crowd shots are perfectly constructed as always. However the most breathtaking landscape shots appear to come from matt paintings, and Curtiz doesn't handle the wide open spaces of the west particularly well. For me the only real standout moment is a massive barroom brawl, with dozens of participants. Curtiz was great at handling these large scale action scenes, but none of the smaller stand-offs really get off the ground.<br /><br />Dodge City is a certainly watchable film, but there are far better westerns from this period, not to mention far better Errol Flynn films.