Barbary Coast

Barbary Coast is a 1935 American historical Western film directed by Howard Hawks. Shot in black-and-white and set in San Francisco's so-called Barbary Coast during the California Gold Rush, the film combines elements of the Western genre with those of crime, melodrama and adventure. It features a wide range of actors, from hero Joel McCrea to villain Edward G. Robinson, and stars Miriam Hopkins in the leading role as Mary 'Swan' Rutledge. In an early, uncredited appearance, David Niven plays a drunken sailor being thrown out of a bar. Plot On a foggy night in 1850, Mary Rutledge and retired Colonel Marcus Aurelius Cobb arrive in San Francisco Bay aboard the clipper ship Flying Cloud. She had come to wed a wealthy owner of a gold mine, but he had lost his mine at the roulette wheel when the ball landed on red 13 times at the Bella Donna, a gambling house and restaurant. The men at the wharf reluctantly inform her that her fiancé is dead, murdered most likely by Louis Chamalis, the powerful owner of the Bella Donna. Mary is upset, but quickly pulls herself together. Mary meets Chamalis and goes to work for him. Chamalis gives her the name "Swan" and showers her with extravagant gifts. Their relationship sours quickly because Swan is angered by Chamalis's destructive power-mongering. She does not, however, mind running a crooked roulette wheel and cheating the miners out of their gold. Colonel Cobb purchases a printing press, with the intention of starting a respectable newspaper for the people of San Francisco. His first issue includes an article criticizing an unpunished murder by Chamalis and his men. When Chamalis finds out, he threatens to destroy Cobb's printing press and burn down the building, but is halted by Swan. Chamalis demands that Cobb never print anything attacking him. The colonel unwillingly complies.