20 Mule Team | |
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Directed by | Richard Thorpe |
Written by | Cyril Hume Richard Maibaum Edward E. Paramore Jr. |
Story by | Owen Atkinson Robert C. DuSoe |
Produced by | J. Walter Ruben |
Starring | Wallace Beery Leo Carrillo Marjorie Rambeau Anne Baxter Noah Beery Jr. |
Cinematography | Clyde De Vinna |
Edited by | Frank Sullivan |
Music by | David Snell |
Color process | Black and white |
Production company | |
Distributed by | Loew's Inc. |
Release date |
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Running time | 84 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
20 Mule Team (also known as Twenty Mule Team) is a 1940 American western film directed by Richard Thorpe and starring Marjorie Rambeau, Anne Baxter and Wallace Beery, who appears with his nephew Noah Beery Jr. The film was originally released in sepia-tone, a brown-and-white process used by the studio the previous year for the Kansas scenes in The Wizard of Oz. [1]
In 1892 Death Valley, California, dwindling borax deposits have the Desert Borax Company at the brink of bankruptcy. The company is unable to pay its transport drivers, the 20 mule teams that haul the borax across the desert. Skinner Bill, a mule-team driver, is unable to pay his rent and is evicted by Josie Johnson, owner of the Furnace Flat saloon.
Stag Roper arrives in town and persuades the bank to extend the borax company's credit, hoping to discover more borax. Stag learns that Bill has found borax crystals from Chuckwalla, who died in the desert. Stag knows that Bill is wanted for murder and blackmails him to help wrest Chuckwalla's claim. Bill agrees, and the next day he joins Pete in an effort to locate the claim. Chuckwalla's former partner Mitch engages them in a shootout as he tries to protect his claim.
Josie's daughter Jean plans to elope with Stag, but Josie locks her in her room and confronts Stag. He shoots Josie and joins his partner Salters to steal Mitch's claim.
Bill and Pete pursue Stag and find Mitch unconscious in the desert. Following a shootout with Stag, Bill places Mitch on his mule and sends him back to town.
Mitch marries Josie, and they move to Los Angeles.
In a contemporary review for The New York Times , critic Theodore Strauss wrote that the film "moves little faster than its plodding mules" and assessed the cast performances: "As the whip-slinging skinner Mr. Beery is as hard-headed, muddled and garrulous as of yore; Marjorie Rambeau, as the mother, is obviously full of woe, and Anne Baxter is an attractive little desert flower. Leo Carrillo, that perennial Indian, is practically left to shift for himself so far as the script is concerned. The remaining cast is adequate, including the mules, who are very docile. But they're awfully slow." [2]
Boron is a census-designated place (CDP) in Kern County, California, United States. Boron is 15 miles (24 km) southwest of Red Rock Mountain at an elevation of 2,467 feet (752 m). The population was 2,086 at the 2020 census, up from 2,025 at the 2000 census. Boron is named after the element boron and is the site of the world's largest source of the boron compound boric acid.
Wallace Fitzgerald Beery was an American film and stage actor. He is best known for his portrayal of Bill in Min and Bill (1930) opposite Marie Dressler, as General Director Preysing in Grand Hotel (1932), as Long John Silver in Treasure Island (1934), as Pancho Villa in Viva Villa! (1934), and his title role in The Champ (1931), for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor. Beery appeared in some 250 films during a 36-year career. His contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer stipulated in 1932 that he would be paid $1 more than any other contract player at the studio. This made Beery the highest-paid film actor in the world during the early 1930s. He was the brother of actor Noah Beery and uncle of actor Noah Beery Jr.
Min and Bill is a 1930 American pre-Code comedy-drama film, directed by George W. Hill and starring Marie Dressler and Wallace Beery. Adapted by Frances Marion and Marion Jackson from Lorna Moon's 1929 novel Dark Star, the film tells the story of dockside innkeeper Min's tribulations as she tries to protect the innocence of her adopted daughter, Nancy, while loving and fighting with boozy fisherman Bill, who resides at the inn. The picture was a runaway hit. In 1931, the studio released a Spanish-language version of Min and Bill, La fruta amarga, directed by Arthur Gregor and starring Virginia Fábregas and Juan de Landa.
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Spoiler or Spoilers may refer to:
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