During the silent screen years Ronald Colman and Vilma Banky were a popular screen team and The Winning Of Barbara Worth was their first film together. Neither Colman or Banky was particularly happy with doing a western and certainly neither are players you would think of for a western. But in the days of the silent screen you could not hear Colman's cultured English tones or Banky's thick Hungarian accent which killed her career in sound films.
The Winning Of Barbara Worth is a modern western set in 1926 Arizona where Banky's father is the local head honcho in a small town. Father Charles Lane has a dream of building a dam and irrigating the desert and turning it into an agricultural paradise. But he puts his trust and the hard earned cash of his people into the hands of the unscrupulous E.J. Ratcliffe who cut many corners and built one inferior dam. His chief engineer Ronald Colman points that out to him and his fired for his trouble.
Undaunted, Colman gets new backing from millionaire Fred Esmelton and goes to work on a new dam. Which does not fit in Ratcliffe's plans and he tries to stop Colman by fair means or foul.
Colman also has eyes for Banky, but she's already got Gary Cooper courting her. And Coop's the jealous type and does not think Colman is on the up and up.
Henry King whose career in films spanned over 40 years and was the top contract director at 20th Century Fox during sound did a great job both with his live players and the cinematography. The overflowing dam and subsequent flood was of DeMille like quality.
Maybe Ronald Colman and Vilma Banky aren't what many would consider western names, but that sure can't be said about Gary Cooper for whom this was his first featured role. Coop had done many bit roles in silents up to this time, but he was a complete unknown at this time and The Winning Of Barbara Worth was his first part with billing. You probably could not have made this film during sound with the voices of Colman and Banky, but when Cooper uttered his first screen words in Wolf Song, this man's voice perfectly suited the characters he had been playing on the screen already. In fact both Colman and Cooper went on to far bigger careers because of sound unlike poor Vilma Banky who barely spoke any English.
In the scenes he's in Gary Cooper steals the film and there was no doubt this man was going to be a major star. The Winning Of Barbara Worth holds up very well as drama and with Gary Cooper a star was born.
