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Pure 1946. Wallace Beery and Margaret O'Brien try to steal from the film from each other. It's a hoot. Great entertainment.

Bad Bascomb is a bad man. A very bad man. So is his sidekick, Bart Yancy. They are remorseless in all of their criminal activities, including the heartless murder of an elderly scout for a Mormon wagon train headed west. Hunted men, they take cover in the wagon train to avoid capture.

While undercover, "Bad" Bascomb's heart is stolen by pure love and trust from an 8 year old girl who l-o-v-e-s him without reservation and in spite of his coarseness and even cruelty.

The transformation is amazing to watch. Beery and O'Brien steal every scene and leave you anxious for their next one. Their banter is at times hilarious yet still remains poignant.

I understand the criticism of some of the action sequences. They seem hurried if not careless. The scene of the wagon train crossing the river, however, is excellent. This is a low budget programmer so I refuse to criticize a lot of the technical short comings. As is true of most of these low budget films, this one is elevated by the performances of unmatched character actors like Marjorie Maine, J. Carroll Naish, and Sarah Haden. In the end though, Wallace Beery and Margaret O'Brien will steal your heart forever.

Wallace Beery plays Bad Bascomb, the cuddliest outlaw in the West! He's a bank robber, a cattle rustler, and he's (oh my!) left-handed! But once he joins up with a wagon-caravan of Mormons--in order to escape the law--B.B. becomes humanized, a scoundrel with a squishy heart. This is a cute western with a warm theme, the best sequences involving Beery with teary Margaret O'Brien (they meet while he's stealing chicken). Marjorie Main is always fun to have around playing Bascomb's Mormon-intended. Strictly a formula film, sentimental and "nice", although some of the action scenes are sloppily-directed and there's some curious overdubbing (when O'Brien says to Beery, "Are you gonna marry her?", Beery answers, "You really are ill!" but his lips say "sick"). Still, quite enjoyable and with some very funny lines. *** from ****

After the Civil War, the western territories becomes lawless lands. The federal government sends men tasked with tracking down notorious bandit Zeb Bascomb (Wallace Beery). They ambush Bascomb and his men, but he escapes with his right hand man Bart Yancy. The duo encounters a Mormon wagon train and lie their way to joining them where Bascomb befriends young orphan Emmy (Margaret O'Brien).

Margaret O'Brien is doing her usual adorable self and Wallace Beery is doing Wallace Beery. The comedic duo has easy chemistry. The plot does get in the way a little. Emmy goes one step too far and the movie hits a bit of a bump. Nevertheless, this is a fine fun western.

Director S. Syvan Simon's 1946 film "Bad Bascomb" is truly amazing. As a western it is awful, almost as bad as the cheapest of the Republic features. Yet for all but the most cynical viewers the film is a real treat simply for the wonderful scenes between nine-year old Margaret O'Brien and 60 year-old Wallace Beery (and nicely complemented by Marjorie Main in a supporting role). These are so well written that they seem to have come from a different writer than the rest of the film. And fortunately their scenes together make up a sizable portion of the total.

O'Brien was simply the cutest child actor in cinema history. And not only did she instinctively know how to act but she worked hard to master accents for her roles and she took direction very well. In "Bad Bascomb" Simon had her turn up the cuteness meter even higher than when she played Lady Jessica opposite Robert Young and Charles Laughton in "The Canterville Ghost". He knew exactly what he was doing because Beery's gruff and blustery performance balances it out quite nicely. Their scenes mostly involve her setting him up to deliver a series of absolutely priceless lines.

The story (which is almost irrelevant) begins with Beery's title character being thwarted when his gang attempts a bank robbery. Bascomb and his sidekick Bart Yancy (J. Carol Nash) escape and attempt to leave the area with a Mormon wagon train heading for Utah. They discover gold hidden on the train and Yancy enlists a band of Indians to attack the wagons. This results in another of those silly ride-around-the-circled-wagons Hollywood Indian attacks and some additional action as Beery rides to a nearby fort so the cavalry can come and save the day.

Like "Angel and The Badman" (made just a year later), the outlaw Beery is gradually won over by the loving girl although in this case it taps into fatherly rather than romantic love.

The day-to-day journey of the wagon train is done very well but the larger scale action sequences are rather lame. Beery has an "obvious" double for the horse riding scenes and almost everything that involves physical movement. Nash's character is a bit discordant, as Yancy has a lot of nice guy moments that simply don't fit with what is supposed to be his true nature. And there is a "Shane" ending that probably should have been reworked. I suspect that the producers were trying to target two very different audiences with this film and ended up hurting its basic unity.

But ultimately these defects don't really matter because of the slick performances of O'Brien, Beery, and Main. It's sentimental and contrived but it works.

Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.