Here the King out-blazes the desert sin in one of the hottest westerns ever made . Seducer adventurer , ex-con and fast-on-the-draw gunman called Dan Kehoe : Clark Gable arrives in a small town saloon , there he meets Bartender (Jay C. Flippen) of Rosebud Saloon in Touchstone and hears stories of the four villains McDade Brothers . Three of the career outlaws were murdered on their last heist while one escaped , being his identity unknown. Hearing that the gold is buried at Wagon Mount, Kehoe ignores dangerous warnings and ingratiates himself with an old woman : Jo Van Fleet with a fake tale about meeting her surviving son in a prison cell . Meantime , 4 tempting widows have stayed with their cantankerous mother-in-law for the past two years , and Dan seduce them : Oralie cried , Birdie teased , Ruby fought , Sabina waited for him with a smile . Each widow : Sabina McDade : Eleanor Parker , Ruby McDade : Jean Willes , Birdie McDade : Barbara Nichols , Oralie : Sara Shane hoping that her husband is the surviving son and sole claimant to the money : $50,000 cache of stolen gold that is hidden somewhere on the family ranch .The King plays the hottest game in the West . . . with four beguiling Queens! Hilarious Western comedy in which smooth-talking Clark Gable playing an ex-con who is a crack-shot shows his particular talent , acting in his stereotyped role , as he uses his charm on four ladies and he also dances wonderfully with them . This is a battle of sexes and six-guns ; it includes humor , songs , sprawling , almost primitive action teeming across the screen . The plot is plain and simple , a seductive and opportunistic con man named Dan ingratiates himself with the cantankerous mummy of four outlaws and he seduces 4 beautiful widows in order to find their hidden gold . A rip-roaring Western/comedy /romance in which the conventions of the Wild West are turned upside down . This funny picture has comedy , diverting situations and concentrating on humor along with nice inventive bits , skilfully combining the entertainment with the amusement . Clark Gable runs away with every cowboy cliché and even arranges to wind up with the girl . Important appearance by Hollywood veteran Clark Cable gives a sympathetic acting as the opportunistic con man, on the run when meets 4 beautiful as well as captivating woman. Jo Van Fleet provides a sensational performance as the feisty mother, who dislikes visitors , but she was actually 14 years younger than Gable ; furthermore she guards her daughter-in-law's chastity as tightly as the hidden gold ; finally , he realizes that with Kehoe, she has let the fox into the henhouse. And the four gorgeous man-hungry McDade widows marvelously played by the attractive Eleanor Parker , the busty as well sultry Barbara Nichols , Sara Shane ,and sassy , sweetie Jean Willes . In addition , some notorioues secondaries in brief interventions as Roy Roberts , Arthur Shields , Chuck Robertson and Jay C. Flippen . The motion picture produced by Clark Gable himself , he formed a production company with his Tall Men (1955) co-star Jane Russell and her husband Robert Waterfield in order to produce thiis movie , being well directed by Raoul Walsh by relinquishing creative control , though being an inferior work . From his starts in the silent cinema Walsh achieved successful films until the 50s and forward , early 60s , when he was less dominant , but is still stayed lots of lusty adventure , stories of comradeship and friendship , and Raoul makes the most of plentiful action scenes . Walsh was an expert director of all kind genres but with penchant in Western as ¨Colorado territory¨this interesting Western and action film makes it of the finest of Raoul Walsh genre entries , following other essencila titles as ¨They died with their boots on¨, ¨Along the great divide¨, ¨Saskatchewan¨, ¨King and four queens¨ , ¨The sheriff of fractured jaw¨, ¨A distant trumpet¨ ; Adventure as ¨Thief of Bagdad¨, ¨Captain Horatio Hornblower¨, ¨World in his hands¨, ¨Blackbeard the pirate¨ , ¨Sea devils¨ ; Warlike as ¨Objetive Burma¨ , ¨Northern pursuit¨, ¨Marines let's go¨ ; and Noir film as ¨White heat¨, ¨High Sierra¨, ¨They drive by night¨, ¨The roaring twenties¨ and his last one : ¨The sheriff of fractured jaw¨ . Rating : 5,5/10 ; fairly straightforward movie and passable Western comedy . This average Western film makes it of the lesser interesting of Raoul Walsh genre entries. Rating : Fairly straightforward movie and average .

On the run from the law, spiffily dressed cowboy Gable rides into town and hears tell about Wagon Mound, a settlement outside of the cosmopolitan urban center, run by the five McDade widows. Yep, there's the old lady who runs the spread with a gnarled and iron fist, Jo Van Fleet, who deserves an oscar every time she plays a stubborn old lady, either for acting or for overacting. Then there's these four young widows, Jean Willis, Eleanor Parker, Barbara Nichols, and Sarah Shane. They all get gussied up just because there's now a man around but Van Fleet will have none of that flirting and frottage and other stuff. She don't hold with it. But why, you -- the discerning viewer ask -- why did Gable want to get into this nest of mixed-up women in the first place. Well, I'll tell you. He done heard in the big city that there was one hundred thousand dollars buried someplace on that land but nobody knew where it was. The widows' husbands stole it but then got theirselves blown up without revealing where they'd kept the stash. One of the McDade boys got away but he's been gone for years. So Gable is now in loco visitor. Just curious, kind of, about the location of all that gold.Van Fleet remains skeptical and keeps a weather eye on Gable but the others get glandular by degrees. Nichols is anxious to hop in the sack with Gable at once. Willis too. She even stops smoking cigars. Shane is girlishly eager. Only Eleanor Parker, using a throaty voice that virtually crackles with hostility, holds back. She and Gable had something in common, too, she being from Cedarville and he from Cadiz, both in the great state of Ohio.Act Two gets a little sluggish and talky. It has Gable investigating the four poor sobbing widows who are overjoyed to see him. He wafts from one to the other, leaving a cloud of pheromones behind him and inquiring about the location of that buried gold. En fin, he discovers it and runs off with Eleanor Parker after seeing to it that the gold is returned to those who earned it. The end is abrupt and strains credulity. I kept expecting the return of one of Ma's "boys" and a final shootout. But no.It was shot around what was then the little town of St. George, Utah. I, an alien gentile, enrolled in the tiny community college not long after the picture was completed and some of the structures still stood -- more or less. The community seemed to take with aplomb the fact that so many Westerns and historical epics had been filmed there. I tried to sign up as an extra for "They Came to Cordura" but was rejected when I expressed doubt about my ability to gallop a cavalry horse. My plea that I was a quick study and that they had so few horses in Newark fell on deaf ears.

Surely stars like CLARK GABLE and ELEANOR PARKER deserved better material at their home studio than this trifle about hidden gold and its effect on The King (Gable struts around like he's just left his throne for some slumming in a western shack), and four Queens (lovely looking ladies who seem out of place in this mock western).It's a light-hearted romp for all concerned, except JO VAN FLEET who gives a dynamo performance as the tough old westerner who is hiding the loot from a bank robbery committed by her now deceased sons. When Gable comes sniffing around to discover the loot (which he endeavors to do by charming the four widows into revealing where the gold is hidden), it sets up a series of mildly suspenseful scenes where we wonder how the whole thing is going to end.Since it's all played in rather tongue-in-cheek style with Gable handling the ladies with his usual masculine charm, it makes a rather faint impression when the tale ends without much of a bang and maybe one or two revelations.Credit has to go to Gable and his co-star ELEANOR PARKER, both of whom share some effective moments in a rather weak tale that comes off as mildly disappointing as they ride off into the sunset together.

The cinematography (Lucien Ballard) in this film is as luscious as the four pretty young brides (Eleanor Parker, Jean Willes, Barbara Nichols, and Sara Shane). From the opening credits to the end of the picture, it's pure classic 50's western in terms of rich and sumptuous color, this time by DeLuxe. While the plot isn't going to hold up to the scrutiny of some hyper film critics, it still allows for scenes that are full of sexy humor, as each bride tries her best to undress Clark Gable, perhaps none more than a seductive Jean Willes as Ruby. Jo Van Fleet, as the gun-toting mother-in-law of the four "queens", each of whom married one of her four outlaw sons, is mainly preoccupied with protecting the girls from any man who's bold or stupid enough to stray onto their out of the way property until her supposedly one living son returns from a botched bank robbery to reclaim his wife (whichever one that may be) and buried gold dust, and is the only obstacle between the girls and Gable, who only wants the gold, but is no fool when it comes to women.