Cinefórum-Clásico

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 Nevada et Cash sont recherchés par le shérif et décident de changer de vie. Arrivés dans une petite ville, ils se portent à l'aide d'un anglais qui les engage comme hommes de main dans son ranch. Ils font la connaissance de sa sœur pour laquelle Nevada va vite éprouver des sentiments. Des voleurs de bétail opèrent dans les environs et le shérif, toujours à la poursuite des deux compères, ne tarde pas à faire son apparition...
Malgré un scénario facilement prévisible, on prend plaisir à suivre les différents protagonistes. Gary Cooper est encore bien jeune mais campe un Nevada plutôt solide, William Powell est excellent en méchant Dillon, Thelma Todd est la séduisante un peu hautaine Hettie et Ernie Adams est un sidekick émouvant en mourant dans les bras de Nevada. Pour les irréductibles amateurs de Gary Cooper !

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NEVADA (Paramount, 1927) Directed by John Waters_; scenario by L.G.Rigby and John Stone from the                                        novel by Zane Grey; photographed by C. Edgar Schoenbaum; titles by Jac                                        Conway; edited by Louis D. Lighton; 7 reels.
With Gary Cooper, Thelma Todd, William Powell, Ernie Adams, Philip Strange, Christian Frank, Ivan Christy, Guy Oliver.

Gary Cooper's second starring western for Paramount (the first was Arizona Bound) appears to be the only surviving silent Cooper western (Barbara Worth apart of course) and also the only surviving silent John Waters-directed western. The Gods that decide the fate of old movies must, in this case, have been rather like the furies in the opening montage of Crime Without Passion, for of all the excellent Zane Grey westerns that Paramount turned out in the 20's, Nevada is surely one of the weakest. Waters admittedly was a mediocre director, and most of his westerns were in the programmer level. The important, large-scale Zane Grey westerns - like The Thundering Herd, The Vanishing American (at least two prints of which have, furtunately, survived) and "Border Legion" - were handed to such directors as William K. Howard and George B. Seitz, who made the most of them. Waters' prolific output included Arizona Bound, Man of the Forest, Born to the West, Forlorn River and Drums of the Desert, as well as such mildly ambitious non-westerns as "Two Flaming Youths" and "Beau Sabreur". As soon as his Paramount contract was up - and it was not renewed - he announced that he would free-lance, and promptly dropped from sight.

Perhaps Nevada suffers a little too much from trying to be a "different" western vehicle for Gary Cooper. There's frankly too little plot and too little action, and other Waters westerns, though disappointing, at least had the standard quotas of both. Here, even though Waters has fairly big-scale action scenes to play with, he seems anxious all the time to get back to Cooper. The gangs of rustlers, and the sheriff's posse, are quite outsize, and some of the riding scenes are quite spectacular. They are also not too well organised, and the gangs come thundering out of nowhere before they can really be exploited properly. Perhaps, inadvertently, this makes for realism, but it doesn't make for the maximum of showmanship and excitement. Luckily however, Waters had a top cameraman in Schoenbaum, who photographed most of his other westerns, as well as The Vanishing American. A most prolific cameraman, who turned out half-a-dozen films a year, he specialised in outdoor work and spectacular locations, as well as "sea stuff", viz Code of the Sea, which was another one of his Paramounts. Certainly the majestic locations in Nevada are beautifully photographed -- and for the most part they are unfamiliar locations too. Schoenbaum also gets some brief but effective Fritz Lang calibre lighting into the scenes involving the hidden "mystery" villain.

Cooper plays just as one would expect (Buster Crabbe and Hobert Mitchum played the role again in two excellent "B" remakes) but it is William Powell who completely steals the show as the ruthless and quite sardonic villain, playing it all with a sense of humor dangerously akin to contempt, as though it were all far beneath him, and he knew_ he'd be doing Nick Charles in just a few more years. Delightful Thelma Todd is, unfortunately, rather stiff and constrained by a standard heroine role far more suited to Billie Dove or Mary Brian. What a pity to see all that pep and fire subdued!

This print, the only one on 16mm, has just been duped from a fast decomposing 35mm print. Much of it is seriously hypoed, although the worst is in the first reel. So never fear	it gets better as it goes along! Obviously, minor pieces are missing here and there, but the biggest chunk (though not too important a one, if the film followed Grey's original) is at the very beginning, where a short barroom scuffle, and the hero's first meeting with the heroine, are out. But all this is before the plot proper gets under way, and since the film ran less than 70 mins originally, obviously not much out anywhere.