The Texans (1938)

In 1865 Texas during the post Civil War reconstruction, a fiery Yankee hating lass (Joan Bennett) runs guns to her boyfriend (Robert Cummings) who brings them to Mexico in the hope that Emperor Maximilian of Mexico will aid them in getting rid of all Yankees in the South. But when an ex-Confederate soldier (Randolph Scott) with more practical ideas enters the picture, she embarks on a dangerous cattle drive to Abilene to sell her 10,000 head of cattle. An unanticipated ambitious western in its scope, the film never quite reaches epic status. There are several splendid sequences: a cattle drive across the river, a dust storm, a prairie fire, a stampede causing destruction in town but these are just moments in a rather conventional narrative. The film is also one of that odd breed which flourished in the films of the 1930s and 40s, a revisionist western in which the corrupt Northerners are the villains and the oppressed Southerners are the heroes. The Yankees as portrayed here are either drunks, greedy or bullies or sometimes all three! Bennett makes for a spirited heroine and Scott a stalwart hero but it's May Robson as Bennett's scrappy grandmother that takes the acting honors. Directed by James P. Hogan. With Walter Brennan, Harvey Stephens and John Qualen.