The Spoilers (1942 Film)

The Spoilers (1942 Film)

The Spoilers is a 1942 Western drama film directed by Ray Enright. The movie is set in Nome, Alaska during the Nome Gold Rush, with Marlene Dietrich as Cherry Malotte, Randolph Scott as Alexander McNamara, and John Wayne as Roy Glennister, and culminates in a spectacular saloon fistfight between McNamara and Glennister.

The Spoilers was adapted to screen by Lawrence Hazard from the 1906 Rex Beach novel of the same name. Film versions also appeared in 1914, 1923 (with Noah Beery, Sr. as McNamara and Anna Q. Nilsson as Malotte), 1930 (with Gary Cooper as Glennister and Betty Compson as Malotte; this is the only time that Gary Cooper and John Wayne played the same role in two different films), and 1955 (with Anne Baxter as Malotte, Jeff Chandler as Glennister, and Rory Calhoun as McNamara). Marlene Dietrich, Randolph Scott, and John Wayne also appeared together that same year in a movie called Pittsburgh. Remarkably, Scott was billed above Wayne in both movies, even though Wayne's role was larger and more important in each.

Bestselling poet Robert W. Service (not credited) plays The Poet, a fictionalized version of himself.

The film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Art Direction (John B. Goodman, Jack Otterson, Russell A. Gausman and Edward Ray Robinson).