The Bad Man (1941) User Reviews

Beery And Barrymore Steal It All

[bkoganbing · 6/10 · 25 March 2009]

The Bad Man is a showcase for the talents of two of the biggest scene stealers in the history of film, Wallace Beery and Lionel Barrymore. With those two around the rest of the cast didn't have a chance.

This is the fourth remake of this story, including both a silent film and the plot relocated to revolutionary China for a version starring Boris Karloff. Since we haven't seen another version for almost seventy years, I think we can assume this will be the last one.

Lionel Barrymore and his nephew Ronald Reagan are trying to make a go of a broken down border ranch which if they're not dealing with raids by Mexican bandit Wallace Beery, they've got a skinflint banker in Henry Travers who's holding the mortgage and wants it paid in full. He's got a notion there's oil on the property and is looking for oil man Tom Conway to develop it. Complicating matters is Conway's wife Laraine Day who really loves Reagan.

Everything gets changed in their lives when Beery comes a calling. He even gets Nydia Westman together with cowhand Chill Wills, mainly to keep her away from him.

The film is tailor made for the personalities of Beery and Barrymore. Beery simply dusted off the persona of Pancho Villa from seven years earlier and went to town. Barrymore's played old coots like this, lovable and not so lovable, a gazillion times in the film.

While Ronald Reagan was at Warner Brothers, this was the only film that Jack Warner lent him to another studio for. I remember when Reagan was president saying something like if he could handle Wallace Beery stealing scenes, he was ready for Brezhnev. Personally I think he was better dealing with Brezhnev.

The Bad Man is an easy to take film, very amusing in spots, but it helps to be a fan of either Wallace Beery or Lionel Barrymore.

Give this one a try!

[goodfellamf · 7/10 · 12 April 2003]

Smooth rough and tumble character western with a great grizzled performance from Lionel Barrymore, but a grating one from Wallace Beery. This one has a great closing scene of Barrymore trailing behind a horse on his wheelchair through the desert.

All it's missing is the coyote and Acme products.

[mark.waltz · 5/10 · 18 February 2021]

"Who asked you to love her? I just asked you to marry her!" That line pretty much sums up Lionel Barrymore's bellowing Uncle Henry in this modern set western which takes place in Mexico and focuses on some Americans living there dealing with loveable Mexican bandit Wallace Beery. With the casting of Beery in a Mexican role and Barrymore's constant braying, it's best to watch this as a comedy because it's completely over the top and absurd.

While MGM was not known for their westerns, they made a lot but only a few of them are considered classics in the genre. Here they stuff a bunch of their contract players in it (with Ronald Reagan on loan from Warner Brothers), and through its sepia tone, it looks great. Laraine Day takes a break from the Doctor Kildare movies to play Barrymore's niece now married to Tom Conway although she was once involved with Reagan as his childhood sweetheart.

A feud with wealthy Henry Travers over the selling of his ranch leads to Conway making an offer on it, and after a few reels, you begin to wonder where the top billed Beery is, especially since the film is only 70 minutes. He makes his entrance 24 minutes into the film, covered in sequins, looking like an overstuff pinnata. Beery and his swarm of stereotypical bandito's are very cartoon like, no Speedy Gonzalez in sight.

More comic relief is provided by Nydia Westman as Travers' daughter and Chill Wills as Barrymore's love starred ranch hand. In spite of its absurdity it's very amusing and fast moving to watch strictly as entertainment, not art. Beery pulls a Cagney on Westman (no grapefruit), and Barrymore in his wheelchair gets some slapstick to do as well. Reagan is the nominal hero, but his character is rather dull when compared to the flamboyant nut jobs surrounding him.

Western Wheelchair Sleigh Ride

[NeutrinoKid · 2/10 · 21 July 2020]

Young, skinny, and angry, future president Ronald Reagan plays the good guy to Wallace Beery's rhinestone-studded Bad Man, an over the top bandito performance that is both silly and offensive, as he seems to veer from a Mexican accent into a Russian one, and back again. Lionel Barrymore is persistently loud and annoying as a yammering, wheelchair-bound curmudgeon fighting to save his small ranch in Mexico, with nephew Reagan's help. Lots of yelling, chaos, and cheap humor. As a comedy, not very funny. As a romance, unconvincing. As a drama, truly ridiculous. However, the final scene of Barrymore flying down dusty desert roads with his wheelchair tied to the Bad Man's horse is a hoot!

Stay with this one and it will pay off.

[cinefan-7 · 6 July 2004]

Until Wallace Beery shows up, this is a dull Western with an all-too-familiar plot. But Beery, despite the worst Mexican accent of all time, is a hoot. He must have realized what a joke he had made out of Pancho Villa in VIVA VILLA! (1937) and decided to go for the laughs this time around. Beery ridicules everyone in sight, making fun of Ronald Reagan's ethics. As much as he tries to help Reagan, Beery does not understand all of the hero's moral objections. Berry and Lionel Barrymore fight to see who can be the bigger ham. Tom Conway, looking just like brother George Sanders, is a slimy villain who cannot compete with Beery. Laraine Day is useless as the token romantic interest. Viewers need to treat this silly movie as a what it is--a farce.

Pretty bad

[cutter-12 · 2/10 · 15 October 2006]

I don't know if I'll ever see another Wallace Beery picture as bad as this one. I hope not, but I'm sure he made some other dogs. Usually Beery can be counted on to bring the laughs, and do something memorable with his character.

Beery's is not the worst performance in this piece (that distinction belongs to Lionel Barrymore, obviously loathe to be in this production and cantankerously chewing the scenery with noisy and irritating aplomb like nowhere else on his filmography) but he offers little more than updating his Pancho Villa schtick from Viva Villa. Not much originality or send-up in his performance and he doesn't even appear until around the 30 minute mark. He does look cartoonishly amusing galloping away with the Mexican Federales in hot pursuit though.

This really isn't a funny comedy or a watchable western. At 70 minutes it feels overlong. Everyone stands in one spot and talks endlessly, Ronald Reagan does the hero bit with his usual one dimensional panache, Barrymore won't shut up, and the oppressive sepia tone this was shot in kind of makes you queasy by the end. Chill Wills at least is his usual lovable self as Reagan's sidekick.

Definitely not a Beery classic

What were they thinking?

[samhill5215 · 5/10 · 27 October 2010]

Here's another little gem noteworthy for its headliners and how truly bad it is. Other reviewers have already mentioned that it is confused and not really sure of its direction or purpose and that is certainly the case. There's comedy, crime, romance and much more but it all seems just thrown in there, a hodgepodge of vignettes with barely a hint of continuity other than the central theme of a ranch in danger of foreclosure. So as I sat watching it I kept asking myself the same question: What were the producers and writers thinking? What were the headliners thinking? Both Beery and Barrymore were seasoned actors with many hits to their credits. Why would either agree to do this film? It's hard to know for sure but judging from their gusto I'd say they did it just for the fun of it. And they are fun to watch. Scene-stealers the both of them, and damn good at it. Whenever either Beery or Barrymore appeared the energy level went up and so did the fun quotient. As for the rest of the cast they had their moments but overall they were just trying to keep up. So even though my score is rather low I suggest you don't miss this funny atrocity. And just wait for the last scene. It's a doozy!

Great cast with some script errors but still fun

[morrisonhimself · 8/10 · 28 March 2009]

Trombonehead got one thing wrong: Wallace Beery's "Mexican" accent is not the worst of all time. It's only third worst.

Lafe McKee probably should have been shot for his in some small Western, the name of which I can't remember, and Marlon Brando's, in "Viva Zapata" was the second worst.

Other, though, than his poor accent, Berry's characterization is pretty funny, although it doesn't seem to translate well from the stage to the screen.

Lionel Barrymore was rather -- and I apologize for the cliché -- over the top, but he had some great lines and characterization.

Ronald Reagan, in an unusual loan-out from Warners, looked great, and did a very good job as the hero. Laraine Day looked great, too, and was mostly quite believable.

Tom Conway is another under-rated actor, and his role was rather thankless, but he looked and sounded very good.

Chris-Pin Martin, on the other hand, was outstanding ... although he nearly always was. Whenever he was on screen, he drew the viewer's attention. He was a great talent.

In his mini-bio, Gary Brumburgh calls Nydia Westman "adorable." That says it perfectly. She stood out in every scene she was in.

Perhaps the reason so many commenters here rate this film low is that it seems to start out as a serious Western, and that it is really a comedy doesn't become apparent till later.

I'll admit it took me a while to realize it, but when I found myself laughing at, especially, Barrymore's "shoot him" and other extreme comments, I finally caught on.

I seriously recommend the people who didn't like this to give it another chance; and anyone who hasn't seen it, I urge you to do so.

A Totally Entertaining Movie

[Trombonehead · 10/10 · 25 March 2009]

After reading all the heavy reviews of this movie, I have to respond. Hey, chill out and don't be so serious, people! I had never seen it before, let alone even heard of it. So when I tuned into it one night on Turner Classics, at first I wasn't too sure what to think. But it didn't take long before I began to really like it. It doesn't pretend to be anything other than a corny, light-hearted spoof. Lionel Barrymore is great as always, and so is Wallace Beery. I really liked the fact that there is no musical soundtrack, and it's kind of a piece of theatre with long takes of dialogue and interaction between the goofy characters. All the other members of the cast like Ronald Reagan and Henry Travers simply revolve around the masterful characterizations of Barrymore and Beery. Yes, Beery has the worst Mexican accent of all time----he's doing it deliberately for laughs. And nobody can play a crusty old curmudgeon better than Lionel Barrymore, the world's greatest scene stealer. These two legendary talents have a great rapport. Don't even remotely attempt to take this movie seriously in any way, just enjoy it for what it is and appreciate the amazing talents of two of the greatest actors in movie history. Who couldn't help but laugh at the final scene of Beery galloping through the desert on his horse, pulling Barrymore in his wheelchair? Great comedic acting and a really original, funny script.

Barrymore Steals the Show

[Michael_Elliott · 23 May 2009]

Bad Man, The (1941)

** (out of 4)

OK, try to follow this and I'll try to make sense out of it. A rancher (Ronald Reagan) and his uncle (Lionel Barrymore) are about to lose their ranch to a greedy banker (Henry Travers) after a bandit, Pancho Lopez (Wallace Beery) steals their cattle. The bandit soon learns that the rancher is the one who saved his life years earlier so he wants to do good and that includes hooking him up with the woman (Laraine Day) he loves but who is married to another man (Tom Conway). This western/comedy is rather hard to judge because it tries to do so much in its short running time but by the end of the movie the laughs had turned dry and I found myself getting rather bored. When you've got two scene chewers like Beery and Barrymore you'd expect something more and in the end this film just didn't deliver enough. I found the best thing to be Barrymore who is a hoot in his role, which really seems to have influenced Yosemite Sam. I'm not sure if the Looney Tune character was based on Barrymore's work here but it really seems like it. The two act very much the same way, use similar words and even have close to the same accent. Barrymore is downright hammy, in a good way, and you can't help but laugh at him constantly embarrassing and poking fun at Reagan. Reagan, Day and Conway add nice support but they have a hard time breaking through all the scene chewing by the two other leads. I was somewhat disappointed in Beery and his bad Mexican outfit even though I haven't seen VIVA VILLA!, which apparently this is somewhat spoofing. This was the fourth version of this film, including a 1937 version with Boris Karloff but it didn't impress me too much. The great cast will have people turning in to watch but to me only Barrymore was worth it.

come on, it's a hoot

[leelacolorado · 8/10 · 20 September 2013]

I gotta agree with Trombonehead -- this movie is funny. I suggest fast forwarding through the first 20 minutes and then jumping in when Wallace Beery comes in. He and Barrymore have a hoot playing off of each other. I love both these actors, and I just kept envisioning this two old hams going, "The hell with it. The script is awful. Reagan's a doofus. Let's have fun." I just had to laugh at all of Beery's silliness. I thought I'd hate this movie and almost turned it off. I'm glad I stuck with it, just to see these two old veteran actors have a good time. And, though it's all a bad cliché, I did think that the Mexican Bandito thing was played for humor and a joke on every bad cowboy movie with a Mexican. And Beery just pulled out all the stops with it. Of course, it isn't realistic -- the movie was already bad. The old farts just took the opportunity to make it so bad it's great.

This, that, or the other thing?

[jaykay-10 · 15 October 2003]

A curious, inconsistent hodgepodge from the start, this picture appears for a time to be an altogether conventional, cliche-ridden Western, despite its "A" cast. What drama exists in the story is compounded by the late arrival of the film's nominal star (top billing), Wallace Beery, reprising his Pancho Villa characterization under a different name. At first a danger and a menace to the good folks, the character gradually - but none too subtly - becomes a caricature, a mercurial buffoon difficult to take seriously. After the plot is resolved by a familiar turn or two, the picture ends with a ludicrous scene of Lionel Barrymore in a wheelchair being towed at considerable speed across the prairie by Beery on horseback. As a Western, the picture is totally undistinguished. Its comic elements, such as they are, generate exceedingly feeble humor. Among the few positives: Ronald Reagan gives a winning low-key performance as a gentle cowhand, Lionel Barrymore chews every bit of scenery in sight, and Nydia Westman is impressive in a quirky minor role. But when all is said and done, it is not easy to figure out exactly what kind of picture this was supposed to be - or, for that matter, why it was made.

A fun film...especially because of Lionel Barrymore's performance!

[planktonrules · 9/10 · 13 October 2022]

"The Bad Man " is a surprisingly fun film...something that really caught me by surprise. After all, with Wallace Beery playing a Mexican bandito, I assumed it would be pretty bad.

The context for this film is something many folks today won't recognize. Back in the 1910s, the Mexican bandit, Pancho Villa, was a revolutionary bent on land redistribution. His plan was to take away the land from the rich landlords and give it to the poor...and make himself rich along the way. The United States took notice when Villa and his army crossed the border and began raiding sites in the US. This would explain why the original story came out in 1920 as a play...a very timely one considering Villa's exploits were fresh in the minds of audience members.

The film is set along the US-Mexican border. A married couple (Laraine Day and Tom Conway) have arrived at a ranch...and it just happens that the wife used to be the sweetheart of the young man running the place (Ronald Reagan). Despite the fact that Day and Reagan obviously care deeply for each other, she plans on staying with her rich husband...though through the course of the film he proves himself to be a real jerk. So how does his nasty and pusillanimous side reveal itself? Well, Pancho Lopez (Wallace Beery) and his men arrive and hold everyone captive...and the husband as well as the landlord who is planning on taking the ranch away from Reagan and his uncle (Lionel Barrymore) both are there and think their money can buy them out of trouble with Lopez. Instead, however, Lopez recognizes the owner of the ranch, as years before he saved Lopez's life. So how will he repay this kindness? See the film and find out for yourself.

This is a hilarious and fun film. While having Beery playing a Mexican might seem offensive to some today, he did an excellent job in the lead and was terribly charismatic and effected a good Mexican accent. But the best part of the film, by far, was Lionel Barrymore's character...a cantankerous old man who HOPED and BEGGED Lopez to kill the landlord and the nasty husband! The script is never dull and the film is among the better movies of 1941. Interestingly, the sepia toned print shown by Turner Classic Movies appeared brand spanking new.