Main Cast: Clark Gable, Eleanor Parker, Jo Van Fleet, Jean Willes, Barbara Nichols
Release Year: 1956
Country: US
Run Time: 86 minutes
Plot
The King and Four Queens was the first (and last) project from Clark Gable's own production company, GABCO. Gable stars as Western fugitive Dan Kehoe, who hides out in a small ghost town. Here he whiles away his time with the town's only inhabitants: Ma MacDade (Jo Van Fleet), matriarch of the outlaw McDade family, and the four wives (Eleanor Parker, Jean Willes, Barbara Nichols, and Sara Shane) of Mrs. McDade's gunslinging sons. Three of the four McDade boys are dead; the fourth is expected to return at any minute with the loot from a recent stagecoach robbery. Since no one knows which of the McDades is dead, all four wives make a play for the bemused Kehoe; he in turn responds to their advances, hoping to get a share of the gold. The fur really begins to fly when it turns out that one of the wives is a phony who intends to double-cross the other three and ride off into the sunset with Kehoe. When The King and Four Queens proved a box-office disappointment, Clark Gable gave up the notion of producing his own films and returned to freelancing at the major studios. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Wiard Ihnen - Art Director, Alex North - Conductor, Renie - Costume Designer, Oscar Rodriguez - Costume Designer, Marjorie Henderson - Costume Designer, Raoul Walsh - Director, David Bretherton - Editor, Louis Loeffler - Editor, Robert Waterfield - Executive Producer, Alex North - Composer (Music Score), Alex North - Musical Direction/Supervision, Frank Prehoda - Makeup, Lucien Ballard - Cinematographer, Joseph C. Behm - Production Manager, David Hempstead - Producer, Victor A. Gangelin - Set Designer, Jack Soloman - Sound/Sound Designer, Margaret Fitts - Screen Story, Richard Alan Simmons - Screenwriter, Margaret Fitts - Screenwriter
The King and Four Queens (1956), a western movie, involves a middle-aged cowboy adventurer (Clark Gable) who learns that a stolen fortune remains buried on a ranch that serves as home to four gorgeous young widows and their battle-axe mother-in-law: the drifter turns on the charm. Directed by Raoul Walsh, the film also features Eleanor Parker. This was the only film that Gable both starred in and produced, for the short-lived Russ-Field-Gabco Productions.
Jay C. Flippen as Bartender of Rosebud Saloon in Touchstone
Book version
In 1956, Theodore Sturgeon "novelized" the original screen story by Margaret Fitts for Dell Books, who published it in December 1956 as a 25-cent paperback.
