Lucy Gallant (1955) User Reviews (20)

Turns her trousseau into a fashion empire

[bkoganbing · 7/10 · 1 November 2011]

Before the much bigger budgeted Giant came out the following year, Paramount's B picture unit producers William Pine and William Thomas gave us Lucy Gallant a thinly disguised version of the founding of Neiman-Marcus. Jane Wyman plays the title role of a woman who was stuck in a Texas oil boom town in the Thirties and got the idea that the newly oil rich Texans might like some really fashionable clothing. As she is a recently jilted bride left at the altar, Wyman sells off her considerable trousseau and with that money builds the best department store in the state with all the latest fashions from Paris and New York.

Charlton Heston has a nice part as the cattle rancher turns oil millionaire like Rock Hudson in Giant who waits for Wyman. But this is clearly Wyman's film. Her father was accused of embezzlement and committed suicide and she wants to prove as a woman she can start and maintain her own business.

Wyman and Heston got a really good supporting cast from Paramount. The Dollar Bills as Pine and Thomas were called in the industry were getting bigger and bigger budgets to work with from Paramount although nothing like what Warner Brothers did for Giant. They assembled a good supporting cast with folks like William Demarest, Thelma Ritter, Wallace Ford, Gloria Talbott, and Tom Helmore settling in parts you are accustomed to seeing them in.

One I wish had more screen time though was Claire Trevor. She plays a former honky tonk owner who sells her place to Wyman for her original store and becomes a friend and rises to be a queen of Texas society. There's just too little of Trevor in this film.

Lucy Gallant is Texas putting its best foot forward. None of the warts are shown as they are in Giant. Still the film holds up well and Dollar Bills were probably justly proud of this work.

A rather Chauvinistic film

[vincentlynch-moonoi · 6/10 · 20 February 2017]

I watched this film...all the way through...but I didn't like it. It seems to me that if there were ever a man and a woman that didn't belong together it was the two main characters in this film, played by Wyman and Heston. Aside from that, and I admit I can't put my finger on it, this film just feels off-target to me. Like when I play pool and every shot is about one inch off the mark. And although I'm a man, it appeared to me that Charlton Heston wouldn't have been a good kisser at all.

The basic story line...at least for a while...seems okay. Wyman is traveling by train through Texas and gets laid over in a cow town that is becoming an oil town. She gets the idea to go into a store for ladies fashions and makes a hit of it. Meanwhile she falls in love with a ranch owner who eventually becomes an oil man. But, oil and water don't mix and Wyman and Heston always seem at odds. And frankly, I have to align with Wyman's character here. Heston plays a mild bully. In the end, she -- unfortunately -- bows to his idea of what a wife should be. What a shame.

Interestingly, Texas Governor Allan Shivers and fashion designer Edith Head both appear as themselves near the end of the film.

There's nothing wrong with the performance of Jane Wyman here. It's the film that's off. But despite Wyman's strength as an actress, I'd have no desire to wade through this again.

Charlton Heston apparently disliked his performance here...and I concur. To be frank, I was never impressed with Heston in romantic films. Despite being in several of the great films of the era, (and "Ben-Hur" is in my top 5), I'm not sure Heston's acting ability was very broad.

Claire Trevor is here, and I liked her in her role. There just should have been much more of her! The wonderful Thelma Ritter is here...basically playing Thelma Ritter...and she's as fascinating to watch here as in any other film! William Demarest, usually an interesting character actor, doesn't fit here. And Wallace Ford (as her husband) has little to do beyond drinking whiskey.

I don't know that I've ever seen a Jane Wyman film that I felt quite this negative about. Not bad though...a single miss in her most productive years.

Fashion comes to Oil Town

[upflow1 · 5/10 · 8 November 2005]

Have heard of this film for quite some time and finally got the chance to view it on tape (probably from AMC). I think the film captures the boomtown feel very well-instant population with lack of lodging or goods =business opportunities. While the film undoubtedly contains many truthful elements concerning the oil boom in Texas ( and even Governor Shivers playing himself ), it does seem just a bit stagy, although Jane Wyman's performance is actually quite good. I found it very intriguing that for the time period when the film was made, a woman was portrayed as virtually building her own business from the ground up without any real help from the man (or men) in her life. The real reason I had heard about the film previously is the "high fashion comes to Texas" bit, with Edith Head behind the creations. As usual, Edith does not disappoint. The designs, especially during the fashion show sequence, are amazing. It's no wonder that Edith Head was so sought after in Hollywood as a costumer for films (most notably for Alfred Hitchcock). She was a real talent. I am in total agreement that this film needs to be released on DVD, as I don't believe that it has ever even been on VHS at any point.

Debutante stranded in a rough Texas oil boomtown uses her classy wardrobe to start an up-scale dress shop for the wives and daughters of the newly rich oilmen.

[RitaK · 5 September 1999]

Jane Wyman plays a refined and educated Eastern woman who arrives in a Texas Oil town to get married. After the wedding is off, she sells her trousseau to get the money to start a dress shop. After 20 years she runs the biggest department store in Texas and socializes with the Texas rich. Charlton Heston waits patiently in the background for her to realize that she can have love and a career. This is one of the few movies from this decade that allowed the leading lady to be something beyond a stereotypical 50's woman.

For many the costumes are the best part of the movie. The fancy department store has fashion shows with great 50's styles styles created by Edith Head and others. I would love for this to come out on DVD. It used to play on TV on Saturday afternoon about 30 years ago and I almost always watched it.

Lucy in New City

[jotix100 · 7/10 · 28 May 2008]

Imagine a New York socialite arriving at a desolate Texas oil town in the 1930s with four suitcases plus a few carry-ons. Poor Lucy Gallant stuck out like a sore thumb! One thing going for her was her ability to adapt to the situation in which is thrown into. She proved she had a head for business when she manages to sell her whole wardrobe to the wives of the new oil barons. These women were ripe for getting whatever fashions they could lay their hands on.

Lucy's success comes with a disappointment. Even though she loves Casey, the man who would end up being a millionaire, she feels she wants to pursue her career as a business woman. After all, she had started out of nothing to build the store of her dreams. Being a woman in that environment also brings her to the reality of seeing what she had built taken away from her during a sneaky maneuver by the man she trusted to help her run the business. In the end, Lucy realizes that being with Casey is a lot more fulfilling than the business she created.

Robert Parrish directed this Paramount release. Jane Wyman was the right choice to play Lucy. She was an intelligent actress who always projected warmth to any role she played. She is the whole reason for watching the film. Charlton Heston plays the awkward Casey Cole with conviction. Others in the cast include the excellent Thelma Ritter, who is a joy to watch in everything she played. Claire Trevor and William Demarest are also seen in pivotal roles.

Jane Wyman Anchors This Oil Boom Story

[atlasmb · 7/10 · 3 February 2017]

Lucy Gallant" stars Jane Wyman as a New York woman who, when passing through a muddy Texas boomtown, recognizes a business opportunity when she sees it.  Costar Charlton Heston plays a rancher who falls for her.  They have trouble agreeing on the terms of a relationship, so she devotes herself to her growing business concern and he plays the love-sick dogie, wishing she would see things his way.

The cast is the best part of this film.  Thelma Ritter, Claire Trevor and William Demarest play colorful characters, solidly performed. Joel Fluellen is uncredited as Summertime, a black man who partners with Lucy in her early success and becomes a trusted employee; the film could have used more of him.

This fish-out-of-water story, like "Giant", chronicles the era when wildcat oil strikes changed the economy, converting cowboys into the nouveau riche. Lucy proves to be an astute businesswoman. She parlays the sudden wealth of fashion-starved women into a local retail triumph.

Casey (Heston) is mystified by Lucy's choices, but still finds her attractive. Is it because of or in spite of the fact she's an enthusiastic go-getter? In many other films of the fifties, women sacrifice their dreams for romance; what will Lucy do?

Good Jane Wyman Film

[JLRMovieReviews · 7/10 · 9 January 2015]

Jane Wyman is "Lucy Gallant," who goes to new territory to set up in business and sell women's clothes - to be her own woman, to stand on her own two feet. But when Charlton Heston set his eyes on her, he fell in love with her and wanted her for himself. By the way, he doesn't like these "independent women." He is both attracted to and dismayed by her being cool to him in the beginning. But he is just as determined as she is. Claire Trevor, Thelma Ritter, and William Demarest all give good support, but this film belongs to Ms. Wyman, who gives the role both her vulnerability and firm resolve. "Lucy Gallant" is a harder-to-find film of hers than others. And, while it may seen rather predictable and not that much original in concept, its production values and good actors make up for it. Ms. Wyman's likable disposition invites the viewer to spend time with her and we never lose interest in her world as she tries to make a go of it and having to deal with Charlton's passes at her. Will she succumb to his advances? Will she triumph over tragedies that befall her business? You'll only learn, if you enter the world of "Lucy Gallant."

Lucy Gallant

[henry8-3 · 3/10 · 10 February 2022]

Fashion designer Lucy Gallant (Jane Wyman) gets stranded in a oil strike town in Texas where local farmer and soon to be oil zillionaire (Charlton Heston) falls for her. She is ambitious though and sets up a fashion store in town which becomes a success. As they follow their separate careers, Heston wants her without the business but she's having none of it

The whole premise of this film feels awkward - creating a top fashion store for people covered in muck all day and a romance with chauvinistic square jawed local misery Heston doesn't seem like a winning formula and it isn't. It looks fake throughout, the basic premise of him vs her, in a 'sweet' way is played out ad infinitum supported by daft montages to demonstrate the passing of time to try and make it look epic and features an irritating score with frequent inserts of 'I've been working on the railroad' for some reason.

Wyman is ok, just, Heston, a complete robot but Claire Trevor and Thelma Ritter provide some solid support. On a final note, the ending is deeply, deeply annoying.

a fictional version of Neiman-Marcus & Midland boom

[irpworks · 8/10 · 28 February 2003]

First saw this movie on AMC over a decade ago, taped it, and love it. It's actually a good conglomeration of events during the Texas oil boom. The scenes of the hotels being so full and nothing for people to buy in the boom towns is very accurate. The development of the great department store is really telling the story of famed Texas department stores such as Neiman-Marcus, Joske's, Hemphill-Wells and others that brought world-class shopping to the oil and ranching areas of Texas. Heston's performance is great and he really pegs the personality of many older rancher friends I know. And, any lover of Texas politics will love seeing Governor Shivers play himself. Other folks are right, we need this on a good quality DVD - it just has too much good history of the oil boom and post WWII development in Texas to keep locked away.

Lucy Gallant is a great character and movie is a fun period piece but oh! is Charlton Heston hateful.

[mach229 · 6/10 · 27 January 2017]

One of my favorite Saturday Night at the Movies movie from childhood. Even as a ten-year-old though, I hated Casey Cole, Charlton Heston's character - horribly misogynist, manipulative and macho to a degree rarely seen out of other Charlton Heston movies. He makes every effort to pull the smart, beautiful, passionate and ambitious Lucy away from her successful business and into his idea of the perfect little woman - barefoot and pregnant and waiting for the Lord and Master at the front door at the end of the day. Lucy loves him but is determined to be herself and not an empty shell to be filled with just him. I watch it now with happy dread - I have to see again just what a pig Casey Cole is while also seeing the awesome Jane Wyman glow and grow through every minute of her screen time.Absolutely worth the watch. My favorite character actresses Clair Trevor and Thelma Ritter are Casey fans but reliably good as well.

One of my all time favorites. Have kept my TV recorded tape for twenty yrs.

[lcw33 · 10/10 · 11 June 2004]

Lucy Gallant is one of my all-time favorite movies. I love the story of the strong, driven, successful woman, Lucy Gallant. She so reminds me of the woman I always aspired to be. It was such a perfect match between Jane Wyman and Charlton Heston. They really complimented each other. I originally taped this movie off the TV probably twenty-plus years ago, obviously on VHS. I still have it, but it's an incredibly poor recording, very old and worn from so much playing. I also have to fast-forward through the commercials, that were left in when it was originally taped, though after twenty years or more, they are pretty interesting. It's always been one of my favorite movies to watch over and over. I would love to find a good copy on DVD.

Paris, Texas

[writers_reign · 6/10 · 26 August 2020]

Charlton-Dutch Elm-Heston gives another solid wooden performance and is hopelessly outclassed by the entire cast. Although it is Wyman's film there is A+ support from the likes of Thelma Ritter - cast bizarelly as a native Texan despite her Brooklyn accent - Claire Trevor, woefully underused. Uncle Tom Cobleigh and all. Paramount staffers Jay Livingston and Ray Evans weighed in with yet another gem, How Can I Tell Her which had absolutely nothing to do with anything on screen, was badly out of place and truncated with it, still at least The Four Freshmen got to record it in full commercially. Alas, there's more chemistry between oil and water than Wyman and Heston but it is pretty faithful to Texas in the boom-town years.

Didn't like the end

[bcarsonmail-948-209718 · 7/10 · 4 December 2020]

I would have preferred someone like Rock Hudson in the part. Charlton Heston was too grim. Who would fall in love with him? Bitterly disappointed at the end when the heroine, believably played by Jane Wyman, gave up her huge fashion empire to go and be a wee housewife. A completely out of place plot device was introduced near the end where her business had to be rescued by the surly Heston. Oddly, although the great Edith Head was the costume designer, the outfits were terribly anachronistic. Wildly inappropriate for the era.

Decent melodrama about a trial and tribulations of a dress shop owner

[coltras35 · 6/10 · 3 February 2022]

A New Yorker (Jane Wyman) opens a dress shop in Texas and puts business first, over love with a rancher (Charlton Heston).

Typical melodrama that button-eyed Jane Wyman would star in, however her leading man isn't Rock Hudson this time but Charlton Heston - and to be honest he fits the role better as a oil rancher who disdains working girls. He's suitably dour, but Wyman thaws his icy exterior and he falls in love with the her, but he can't change his old-fashioned ways. It's a decent melodrama, a little bit slow and talky and overlong, but all in all a good watch with solid performances from Wyman, Heston and Claire Trevor. If you liked Giant ( Rock Hudson) you might like this one.

Jane's got a fire in her belly!

[jjnxn-1 · 9/10 · 1 October 2013]

Sudsy drama is dated in it's attitudes but still an entertaining ride. Jane Wyman plays a youngish woman who after being spurned has got a fire in her belly and won't let anything stand in the way of her achieving her goal. That would include a young and towering Charlton Heston, it would be harder to understand her resistance if Heston's character wasn't such a macho jerk for much of the film. He's the right actor for the role since his clinched jaw delivery matches much of the blow-hard dialog he's given to speak.

What makes this more than a standard soaper is the talent of the assembled cast. The film is fortunate to have not just one but two of the best character actress Hollywood ever produced, Thelma Ritter and Claire Trevor. Both play roles they could have performed in their sleep but each give them their customary snap and for the latter part of the film Thelma is dolled up in the height of fashion.

For fans of high class melodrama spiked here and there with humor and filled with sumptuous trappings this is a gold mine, although be warned the ending with prove frustrating steeped as it is in a 50's mentality.

Lucy Gallant Comments

[morganoneill · 10/10 · 7 July 2006]

Lucy Gallant stars Jane Wyman and Charlton Heston have a great rapport in this wonderful movie. I have been trying to buy the VHS for 20 years. Is this web site saying the title is changed to Oil Town in 2005? thats very strange...i keep thinking that Jane Wyman has blocked releasing it. Perhaps it will be released on her passing. What a fun and well written movie!!! I cant wait to see it again...its NEVER on TV or cable... what a waste...check it out everyone, its a winner. Jane plays a jilted bride with her designer clothes for the honeymoon . Her train to New York is stopped in Texas with motor problems and she gets her luggage off, and finds that the women around the station are dying to buy good clothes, and she starts selling them right there, and thus begins a very successful department store very like Neiman Marcus. Charlton Heston falls in love with Jane, and what sparks from this as in Bogie and Bacal! They should have made more movies together, great performances all around. see it.

Where to get a good DVD copy of The Lucy Gallant Story

[srs-279-602849 · 8/10 · 30 January 2012]

My approval of The Lucy Gallant Story may be slightly tilted as I am a distant cousin to Gov. Allan Shivers and was only 2 years old when he took the Governor's seat. Beside the thrill of seeing a branch of the family tree in the movie, this is an excellent old film and I wanted a copy in my library. My search led me to: http://www.lovingtheclassics.com/Lucy-Gallant-1955/prod_1590.html The copy I received is of good quality and reasonably priced. This post is for those of you that mentioned a desire to own a good copy and your 20 year old VHS recording of the show is wearing out. Sincerely, Shelton R. Shivers

A bit sexist and old fashioned, but quite enjoyable.

[planktonrules · 8/10 · 6 September 2023]

The story begins with Lucy (Jane Wyman) arriving in some oil boom town at just the right time. Suddenly, thanks to the oil, folks have LOTS of disposable income and few places in which to spend it. So Lucy decides to open a clothing store, Gallant's. Soon she's quite the success. However, at the same time, Casey (Charlton Heston) has fallen for her and he wants to marry her...and vice-versa. The problem is that she is a driven career woman and he wants a stay at home wife. Obviously she cannot be both....so for the next fifteen years or so, the pair never manage to tie the not or even become official boyfriend and girlfriend. Is there any hope to ending this impasse?

The film is well acted, very slickly made and is enjoyable. I am sure a few folks watching might hate the sexist bent of the film, but for 1955 it was actually pretty progressive. Well worth seeing, though a bit predictable as well.

Boom Town Gals

[richardchatten · 8/10 · 16 May 2020]

Sandwiched between 'Magnificent Obsession' and 'All That Heaven Allows'. Squirrel-cheeked, button-eyed Jane Wyman is as usual a delight in a succession of stylish fifties suits (despite the greater part of it being set in the 40's) by Edna Mode - er Edith Head (who herself puts in a rare appearance minus her dark glasses near the end), flanked by a terrific supporting cast including feisty broads Thelma Ritter and Claire Trevor; the eye-candy this time supplied by a virile young Charlton Heston.