A honorable movie set in the aftermath of a fratricide war, an enjoyable B movie with a budget probably bigger than usually, scoring even a mild attempt at looking epic, it uses the same device of the conspiracy and spying, here dealing with the malcontents' attempt to declare an independent state in the West. All characters are cardboard, the plot seems trite, but some craft went into the movie-making. And I liked the wind in the evening scenes, its suggestion of refreshment.
In terms of the humble fun, the movie is as accomplished as could be expected; it seems a pastiche of A westerns.
Steele was a likable player: usually and not only at his best; here, he's a Northern cavalry officer, and it has been the effort of the player's father to establish him as a good guy, while his look would of indicated another type of roles.
There are black people, to whom belongs the 1st of the couple of songs, and Natives in a village, grateful to the administration and loyal if bribed.
The legendary President is a silhouette on a wall; which is simultaneously awkward and charming.
Some takes on these '30s kids' movies omit the fact that many of the plots relied on typical pulp tropes: conspiracies, disguises, treated in a childish and careless way. Many B westerns from the '30s were silly not because of their tropes, but because they used them clumsily, awkwardly, because they underused them though they thronged them. With the advent of the sound movies, new opportunities seem to have appeared for shameless hacks, who made countless graceless movies. But also some who had distinguished themselves during the silent era devolved in the '30s, and suddenly seemed outworn and sloppy, almost unworthy of the prestige they previously gained; in the '30s, the western almost abjured his nobleness, because of the tempting new market opened by the sound movie.
Not all the genre cinema regressed during the '30s; but the westerns did, and were devitalized, and nowadays knowledgeable buffs remark that directors and players seemed to become lackluster and clumsy.
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