Fighting Caravans

Rating:
Summary: Low-rent version of "The Big Trail"...
Review: A semi-clone of "The Big Trail", Cooper takes over the spot DUKE played, as a frontiersman/guide for a wagon train.

While "Fighting Caravans" is not as expansive as "The Big Trail", and while the young Gary Cooper is no young John Wayne, this early western is pretty entertaining.

In the story, Cooper helps the wagon train fend off Indians and evil traders, while his two crusty companions try and save him from falling in love.

There's plenty of action, and there's even a hint of pre-code Hollywood, as Cooper's character practically attempts to blackmail his new sweetheart into fooling around with him.

Laserlight/Delta found a pretty fair print, but there are several missing frames. The image will occasionally "black out", but while annoying, does not interfere with viewing. Originally 92 minutes, this print seems to be more or less intact, missing perhaps two or three minutes.

The story moves along well, and the opening credits alone are pretty snazzy for 1931.

The film has much to recommend it, and while "The Big Trail" is superior, this early Cooper vehicle is worth adding to your western DVD collection. Especially for the low price the disc is being offered at, you should definitely pick this one up.

Film fans should look (or listen!), for Eugene Pallette, of "The Adventures of Robin Hood" fame. He's here in a minor supporting role some seven years before he played Friar Tuck.

Rating:
Summary: Low-rent version of "The Big Trail"...
Review: A semi-clone of "The Big Trail", Cooper takes over the spot DUKE played, as a frontiersman/guide for a wagon train.

While "Fighting Caravans" is not as expansive as "The Big Trail", and while the young Gary Cooper is no young John Wayne, this early western is pretty entertaining.

In the story, Cooper helps the wagon train fend off Indians and evil traders, while his two crusty companions try and save him from falling in love.

There's plenty of action, and there's even a hint of pre-code Hollywood, as Cooper's character practically attempts to blackmail his new sweetheart into fooling around with him.

Laserlight/Delta found a pretty fair print, but there are several missing frames. The image will occasionally "black out", but while annoying, does not interfere with viewing. Originally 92 minutes, this print seems to be more or less intact, missing perhaps two or three minutes.

The story moves along well, and the opening credits alone are pretty snazzy for 1931.

The film has much to recommend it, and while "The Big Trail" is superior, this early Cooper vehicle is worth adding to your western DVD collection. Especially for the low price the disc is being offered at, you should definitely pick this one up.

Film fans should look (or listen!), for Eugene Pallette, of "The Adventures of Robin Hood" fame. He's here in a minor supporting role some seven years before he played Friar Tuck.

Rating:
Summary: Gary Cooper saves his wagon "caravan" from Indian attack
Review: Although this was Gary Cooper's next film after "Morocco" and despite its title, "Fighting Caravans" is not another film about the French Foreign Legion, but rather a Western. Cooper plays Clint Belmet, who is arrested for disturbing the peace right before he was to leave Missouri to be the guide for a caravan of wagons heading west. His partners, Bill Jackson (Ernest Torrence) and Jim Bridger (Tully Marshall), talk Felice (Lily Damita), an orphaned French girl who wagon has just joined the caravan, to pretend to be Clint's wife to get him out of jail. Once free, Clint is more than willing to play the bridegroom, but apologizes where it is clear Felice is angry. The two become friends worrying Bill and Jim that Clint is going to want to marry and settle down. Meanwhile, another member of the caravan, Lee Murdock (Fred Kohler), plays to betray them to the Indians who attack in the final real. This 1931 film, based on the 1929 novel by Zane Grey, was directed by Otto Brown and David Burton. Cooper's performance is okay, although the script does not require him to do much along the way except look handsome. "Fighting Caravans" was such a big production that the two directors shot enough footage that the extra was used as background for the 1934 film "Wagon Wheels" starring Randolph Scott. Finally, to make things really interesting, this film, which is an above-average Western from the early days of talking pictures, has been shown on television as "Blazing Arrows."

Rating:
Summary: Gary Cooper saves his Wagon "Caravan" from Indian attack
Review: Although this was Gary Cooper's next film after "Morocco" and despite its title, "Fighting Caravans" is not another film about the French Foreign Legion, but rather a Western. Cooper plays Clint Belmet, who is arrested for disturbing the peace right before he was to leave Missouri to be the guide for a caravan of wagons heading west. His partners, Bill Jackson (Ernest Torrence) and Jim Bridger (Tully Marshall), talk Felice (Lily Damita), an orphaned French girl who wagon has just joined the caravan, to pretend to be Clint's wife to get him out of jail. Once free, Clint is more than willing to play the bridegroom, but apologizes where it is clear Felice is angry. The two become friends worrying Bill and Jim that Clint is going to want to marry and settle down. Meanwhile, another member of the caravan, Lee Murdock (Fred Kohler), plays to betray them to the Indians who attack in the final real. This 1931 film, based on the 1929 novel by Zane Grey, was directed by Otto Brown and David Burton. Cooper's performance is okay, although the script does not require him to do much along the way except look handsome. "Fighting Caravans" was such a big production that the two directors shot enough footage that the extra was used as background for the 1934 film "Wagon Wheels" starring Randolph Scott. Finally, to make things really interesting, this film, which is an above-average Western from the early days of talking pictures, has been shown on television as "Blazing Arrows."