ThiefHott Too much of everything

Supelice Dreadfully Boring

Lollivan It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Mabel Munoz Just intense enough to provide a much-needed diversion, just lightweight enough to make you forget about it soon after it’s over. It’s not exactly “good,” per se, but it does what it sets out to do in terms of putting us on edge, which makes it … successful?

verbusen OK, so why do I mention that it's pre-code? Well, how many pre-1965 westerns have white men getting hooked up with Native American women as a GOOD THING? How about the line where "Indians have no use for blond women"? Even having a foreigner getting hitched to all-American Gary Cooper in the West could be frowned upon in some circles in the 1930's. So, we have a pre-code western here. I love pre-code films just to catch a line or so that is not considered family friendly. I happen to watch a lot of different media, with pre-code old films being one of my interests for entertainment, I also watch adult themed cartoons like Family Guy. On the Cartoon Channel at night they play mature cartoons and one of them is called "The Venture Brothers". In that show they have a spoof of an elderly Sean Connery superhero and I swear that Ernest Torrence (who steals the show here) was the inspiration for the character and the voice! Seems like some off coloured jokes going on but I could be wrong. I give it a 7, highlights are pre-code and higher production standards then a B flick. However, the audio is often bad and the version I watched looked really chopped up on Retro TV. Probably not a good thing to give it a higher rating, it's no The Searchers but was fun and my wife even was into it, so maybe a good date flick for an old western film. 7 of 10.

wes-connors In Missouri, during the Civil War, "high, wide, and handsome" Gary Cooper (as Clint Belmet) gets a little jail cell shut-eye. Awakening, he moseys over to the local saloon, where he is held at gunpoint by the town's drunken sheriff. Mr. Cooper's guardians, Ernest Torrence (as Bill Jackson) and Tully Marshall (as Jim Bridger), secure his release by convincing French lass Lili Damita (as Felice) to pretend she is Cooper's wife. Then, the quartet join a caravan to California. A real romance begins to bloom between Ms. Damita; but, Mr. Torrence and Mr. Tully want Cooper's bachelorhood preserved. Along the way, Indians (Native Americans) lurk… Old pros Torrence and Marshall are "Fighting Caravans" main attraction. They were responsible for many memorable character roles (mostly) in silent films (mostly); and they are in excellent form, reprising their "Covered Wagon" roles. Cooper obviously enjoys working with them. Ms. Damita is cute and effective. The production levels are relatively high, leading to the obligatory ending battle; but, the performances make it entertaining. Unnecessarily re-made as "Wagon Wheels" (1934), with stock footage and Randolph Scott. ******* Fighting Caravans (2/1/31) Otto Brower, David Burton ~ Gary Cooper, Ernest Torrence, Tully Marshall

patrick.hunter To fully appreciate FIGHTING CARAVANS, one must know a little about THE COVERED WAGON, released in 1923 and the first Western epic. For decades this silent movie was hailed as the finest Western ever, and even in 1968, Bosley Crowther's popular book, THE GREAT FILMS, listed it as one of fifty greatest motion pictures. Few would claim that today, although it is still an entertaining silent. What remains undeniable is THE COVERED WAGON's influence. Other big-budget Westerns soon followed, and, by the talking era, Fox released THE BIG TRAIL (a virtual remake of THE COVERED WAGON) and Paramount released FIGHTING CARAVANS (a virtual sequel).Those of us who love THE COVERED WAGON adore the two lead supporting characters: trackers Bill Jackson and Jim Bridger, played by Ernest Torrence and Tully Marshall. They play them again in this film, only now they're older, because FIGHTING CARAVANS was filmed eight years after, and their increased age actually adds a curious poignancy. Slightly different from the plot conflicts in THE COVERED WAGON, this sequel hinges on whether Jackson and Bridger can both persuade their new, handsome protégé to continue tracking with them and not settle down to marry. However, just as the two have aged, so has the west. With the trains being connected, it is obvious that the trackers will no longer be needed. Not surprisingly for a Western with this sort of elegiaic theme, both Jackson and Bridger die in the film's climax, fighting renegades and Indians. (This, of course, was not how the actual Jim Bridger ended his days, and, yes, the film's portrayal of Native Americans is not accurate either.)Lili Damita, who would later become the first Mrs. Errol Flynn, had one of her best roles as the civilizing influence on the young handsome tracker, convincing him to veer away from a profession that would die with changing times. Gary Cooper plays the young tracker, and he wears buckskin far better than J. Warren Kerrigan did in THE COVERED WAGON. Cooper, in fact, plays another of his callow rakes he did so often in the early thirties, from THE VIRGINIAN to IF I HAD A MILLION to even A FAREWELL TO ARMS, and it's always odd to see him play such parts before Mr. Deeds would change his image afterward.Roughly the same year as this film, MGM released BILLY THE KID, Fox released THE BIG TRAIL, and R.K.O. released CIMMARON; all were very expensive, very spectacular Westerns. FIGHTING CARAVANS was Paramount's contender with these others, and it was a film so big, with so much location work, that two directors were ultimately required. Like the other big Westerns of its time, it contains crude, almost amateur-like, moments. One could even complain that the broad acting of the early talkies is totally at odds with a Western---a genre that traditionally relies on laconic, expressionless characters. However, for those who love curios, for those who love film history and Western history, and for those who love THE COVERED WAGON, this film is a charm.

netwallah The story is stunningly trite, which is not unusual for Zane Gray novels. Two hard-drinking, grizzled scouts, big Scots-accented Bill Jackson and squirrelly little Jim Bridger have raised a handsome young orphan scout Clint Belmet. They conspire to get him out of some sort of trouble in Independence, Kansas, by convincing a pretty young French woman, Felice, to pretend to be Clint's wife. She is setting out across the country with a wagon train to supply the California settlement, and the scouts go along, and pretty soon there's a romance, which Jackson & Bridger loathe and try to foil. Clint nothing more than a giant boy. The caravan is menaced by a war band of Plains Indians, egged on by an evil turncoat white man. The photography is sometimes nice, and the character actors chew the scenery admirably. Gary Cooper is very handsome, and his face more expressive than in some later films, and Lily Damita at times is quite lovely. The story depends on several stupid premises: Clint must grow up and settle down, because the old west is finished (especially when his two mentors die), and after a while he accepts it. Worse yet, the assumptions made by the story and especially the summary titles all rest grotesquely on the doctrine of manifest destiny, which renders Indians savage killers struggling futilely against inevitable progress, and the "pioneers" are heroes, of course. Still, the movie is worth seeing as a curiosity, a slightly embarrassing statement of the values of the 30s.