Silver River (Blu-ray Review)
Director
Raoul WalshRelease Date(s)
1948 (December 9, 2025)Studio(s)
Warner Bros. (Warner Archive Collection)- Film/Program Grade: D+
- Video Grade: A-
- Audio Grade: A
- Extras Grade: B-
Review
Despite the sure hand of director Raoul Walsh, big stars in Errol Flynn and Ann Sheridan as post-Civil War silver miners, a good supporting cast and a lavish budget, Warner’s big-scale Western Silver River (1948) is an incredibly dreary slog with virtually nothing to recommend it. Flynn’s drinking had gotten out of hand, creating delays and pushing costs on the already overproduced film to an astounding $3.2 million, more than twice the amount it should have.
The root problem of Silver River, however, is that its entire premise is faulty, dull and singularly unappealing. During this period, Hollywood made a number of dispiriting films centered around a protagonist who, unjustly treated in his past, become a ruthless empire-builder, letting no one stand in his (or her) way. The recently released (and reviewed here) Bright Leaf (1950), starring Gary Cooper and Lauren Bacall, tells an almost identical story and it’s no damn good, either.
The basic problem with both movies is that big, appealing stars (Flynn, Cooper) are asked to play unappetizing self-centered heels with no sense of ethics, no moral code, are virtually incapable of generating empathy (in either direction), and to achieve their selfish aims will unhesitatingly betray their romantic interest or even their most loyal friends. Movies like these should provide a little escape from our day-to-day reality (hint-hint); who wants to spend two hours alongside such a character? Unlike real life, it’s only in the final minutes, when the protagonist’s empire is destroyed in an earthquake, pandemic or some other disaster, that he (or she), now flat-broke and back to where they started, that they see the error of their ways.
During the Battle of Gettysburg, Union Army Capt. Mike McComb (Flynn) burns $1 million in payroll cash to prevent it from falling into Confederate hands. However, this move is not appreciated by his superiors, who cashier Mike from the service. Though Mike appears to take this in his stride, the public embarrassment somehow compels Mike to create a gambling empire out west. After Mike and his friend, “Pistol” Porter (Tom D’Andrea, good in a kind of George O’Hanlon-sort of sidekick performance) confiscate gambling equipment, he sets out for Silver City, Nevada, planning to open a saloon.
En route, Mike encounters no-nonsense Georgia Moore (Sheridan), who operates a silver mine with her naïve husband, Stanley (Bruce Bennett). Mike incurs Georgia’s wrath when he buys up all the available wagons she desperately needs to move mining equipment to her excavation site. Stanley foolishly buys the wagons back for 6,000 shares in the Moore mining operation, and Mike, romantically interested in Georgia, gradually shifts away from his saloon interests, buying up more and more of the mine.
The turning point of this increasingly talky, dull story, is when Mike encuorages Stanley to prospect Black Rock Ridge, Mike already aware of the presence of hostile Shoshone Indians. This particularly upsets Mike’s loyal if alcoholic attorney, John Plato Beck (Thomas Mitchell), who likens Mike’s actions to biblical story of David, Bathsheba, and Uriah.
Reportedly the two leads had little idea of what Silver River was about, and indeed, Flynn’s one-note performance of his one-dimensional character doesn’t help. He never displays any hurt, envy, or other emotions that would display vulnerability or weakness, emotions that might have made him a bit more sympathetic; when a friend is murdered, Mike’s expression hardly changes at all. Bright Leaf has a very slight edge over Silver River only because the actions of Cooper’s character are better motivated.
Despite its lavishness, the film exhibits signs of the studio putting the kibosh on the production prematurely, before everything was filmed. The non-ending is outrageously abrupt and unbelievable, and despite a story revolving around silver mining all the mining and prospecting occurs offscreen. When prospectors are killed by Indians, it’s offscreen; only adding to the talk instead of showing it. Later in the story Mike and Georgia apparently marry but there’s no wedding scene.
Everything in Silver River is overdone. A funeral scene that would’ve been just fine with 15 extras uses 70, while the climax is like something out of The Hallelujah Trail or Paint Your Wagon with hundreds of extras. The mining operation was shot at the familiar Bronson Canyon, done up with scads of extras, lots of small buildings, mining equipment, etc. For a movie location so frequently used in low-budget productions (such as the recently released-to-Blu-ray The Snow Creature), I don’t think I’ve ever seen Bronson Canyon so opulently appointed. (Curiously, despite being dressed as a mining operation, none of its three cavern entrances are shown.)
Silver River’s bright spots are few. Al Bridge, so hilarious as a regular in Preston Sturges’s screwball comedies, returns to his (B-)Western roots in a surprisingly large straight dramatic role. The opening Civil War scenes have a kinetic thrust very much in keeping with Walsh’s directorial style, though after the first 15 minutes the picture goes downhill fast. Bruce Bennett, so good in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre that same year, playing an impressively shrewd, straight-shooting prospector, here plays the opposite kind of character—naïve, too-trusting—to ill-effect.
Warner Archive’s Blu-ray of Silver River offers a very good, not great, video transfer, the black-and-white 1.37:1 standard film looking sharp with good blacks and contrast. There are a number of matte shots and other process work throughout, but even these come off well. The DTS-HD Master Audio (2.0 mono) is likewise strong, with Max Steiner’s score coming off best. Optional English subtitles are offered on this Region-Free disc.
The disappointing extras are limited to two cartoons, Rabbit Punch and Two Gophers from Texas, both previously released to Blu-ray, and a trailer.
Raoul Walsh, Errol Flynn, and Ann Sheridan worked on many Warner Bros. classics, but this sure isn’t one of them. In his much-missed movie guide, even Leonard Maltin gave it just *½. I’m inclined to give it a half-star more, but Silver River is quite mediocre.
- Stuart Galbraith IV