Dakota Lil (1950) starring George Montgomery, Rod Cameron, Marie Windsor, John Emery, Wallace Ford directed by Lesley Selander Movie Review

Dakota Lil (1950)   3/53/53/53/53/5


Marie Windsor in Dakota Lil (1950)

A Dakota Forger

The government are aware of a major counterfeiting operation going on and send secret service agent Tom Horn (George Montgomery) down to Mexico under the alias of Steve Garrett to track the gang down and bring an end to their operation. Tom's first point of call is to find Dakota Lil (Marie Windsor), a dance hall girl who not only knows how to entertain but also how to forge which makes her perfect to lead Tom to Harve Logan (Rod Cameron) the ring leader of the gang. Unaware that Tom is in fact an undercover agent she finds herself conflicted when she learns who he is as she has fallen for him.

"Well it passed 88 minutes of my day" is not the most flattering thing you can say about a movie but it is how I feel after spending 88 minutes watching "Dakota Lil" a quite ordinary western made back in 1950. From a secret service agent working undercover to a woman outlaw who unwittingly falls for the good guy it is all familiar especially when it comes down to the characters and how things end up playing out. In fairness along the way there are a couple of nice musical scenes thanks to Marie Windsor and a couple of enjoyable action scenes but as a western it is ordinary.

But I should mentioned that the version of "Dakota Lil" I watched was a black and white version which whilst still a good looking movie ended up visually flat. But this was originally shot in Cinecolor and if you go looking there is some colour footage of "Dakota Lil" online which looks a lot more beautiful than the black and white print.

What this all boils down to is that "Dakota Lil" ends up just another western which by no means is the slightest bit bad is not overly memorable either thanks to so many routine elements going on.



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