The Thundering Herd

The cast of "The Thundering Herd" is very impressive...with Randolph Scott, Buster Crabbe, Harry Carey, Barton MacLane, Noah Beery and Raymond Hatton--all very familiar western actors of the day. And, the story is based on a Zane Grey story. And, it has a salacious subplot involving a step-dad that is WAYYY too interested in his step- daughter. Yet, amazingly, it's not that interesting and you could easily do better. Now this isn't to say it's a bad film...but it should have been a lot better.

The story is about a nice guy (Scott) who is in love with a nice girl. However, her sleazy step-dad (Beery) has way too much interest in her and it's obvious the film is STRONGLY implying incest. When the nice guy goes to get his girl in order to marry her, the sleazy step-dad shoots him and beats him up! The guy is too hurt to do anything but let his friends care for him and his desire to save the girl and get revenge will have to wait until he's healed AND they've gone on the buffalo hunt. This includes a lot of nice footage of the animals at Yellowstone...otherwise the big confrontation is a fizzle and the film was quite dull. The lack of any incidental music didn't help any.

Buffalo stampedes... Indian attacks... Plundering bandits... Doan braved them all when he rode into the badlands... and rode out with a beautiful girl!

Both Sprague, Jett and their crews are hunting buffalo. Doan (Randolph Scott) is with Sprague crew and is looking for the Jett outfit where his girlfriend Milly is being held against her will. In addition to the thieving Jett who is stealing Sprague's furs, the Indians are gathering to attack all the white buffalo hunters.

Thundering Herd is quite a raw and primitive western which has some drama and conflict, rugged scenery and the characters -the Jetts- are rather primitive and uncouth degenerates. They do come across real as does the landscape and experiences. There's some good camera angles - but it can be a bit ponderous and dull.

This very early film in Scott's career is the only one in which I've seen him sporting a pencil moustache(or any facial hair). Sometimes, I wondered if I was looking at Brian Donlevy, not realizing how much more they look alike with the moustache factor thrown in... Buster Crabbe is listed near the top of the credits, but only appears in the first segment, as a stage driver. Clearly, his brief appearance was meant to attract more female viewers...Harry Carey, a top cowboy draw during the silent era, has now been relegated to supporting roles, playing Clark Sprague, owner of the Sprague trading post, and bison shooting outfits. John Wayne had great respect for Carey's typical portrayal of westerners. Two of Carey's last film parts were in the Wayne-starring "Angel and the Badman" and "Red River"... Noah Beery played Randall Jett, boss of a hide- thieving buffalo shooting outfit.He and his more famous brother, Wallace, often played heavy villains...Jett's bossy, plain -looking, wife, Jane, is played by Bianche Friderici, who mostly played similar roles in other films...Judith Allen is the tomboyish Milly Fayre, stepdaughter of the Jetts, but with a bad relationship with both. She needs a good man(Randy's character) to rescue her from her intolerable life.

Randy's character, an experienced bison hunter, is a new hire for Sprague. Clearly, he has had a prior romantic relationship with Milly, as she jumps on a stage from her horse, looking for him. Later, they meet in the bush and plan to be married that night.But Randell catches her trying to ride out of the Jett camp, and she is put under guard. He has an incestuous relationship with her. Randy later catches up with the Jetts, on the move, but is wounded and knocked out trying to rescue Milly. The Jetts capture two Sprague wagons filled with hides.Later, the Sprague camp will be threatened by a bison stampede and a large 'Indian' war party. In contrast, the Jetts don't suffer from the bison, 'Indians', nor a reprisal from the Spragues. They are looking forward to more lucrative hide thievery during the early winter, as hide wagons get bogged down in deep snow.(Winter bison hides brought more money, as they were thicker-haired).But just then, as things are looking desperate for the Spragues, disaster hits the Jetts(see the film to find out their demise).

At the time this film was made, there were still only a relatively small number of American bison. Hence we didn't see any actual killings of bison, only stock footage of them being chased. In addition to the domestic market, there was a large European market for the hides at this time. They were especially valued as making a superior leather used as the belts for transferring steam power to machinery, as well as for personal items, such as hats, coats, boots and handbags.After the flesh disappeared, hunting parties returned to their killing fields to gather the bones, which were shipped east to make fertilizer and other products. Ironic that the meat, the most valued part of bison today, was the least valued under the technological conditions of those times(no refrigeration, no good substitute for machinery belts).

You may have noticed some rugged country in the foreground(especially the stage run) and background during parts of this film. Much of the action was filmed in the rugged Alabama Hills, near Lone Pine, with the high Sierras in the background. This was a favored location for filming many westerns, including most of the Hopalong Cassidy series. The often rounded granite boulders and monoliths are geologically similar to the granite in the Sierras, and represent the peaks of granite bodies buried within the sediments of Owens Valley.

This is one of a group of westerns that Randolph Scott's home studio of Paramount assigned to him. Filmed previously as a silent and taking use of a lot of the action sequences from the silent version, Thundering Herd's source was one of Zane Grey's novels.

This is not the Randolph Scott we became acquainted with post World War Two in the westerns he did then. He plays a callow youth here, although he's 35 in real life. He's in the employ of a Harry Carey and Raymond Hatton, partners in a buffalo hunting outfit. Carey and Hatton run an honest group, but there's a rival outfit headed by Noah Beery, Sr. which gets hides the easy way, murdering whites and/or Indians for them.

Randolph Scott has a hankering for Judith Allen who's Beery's stepdaughter. Of course so has Beery to the discomfort of his wife, Blanche Frederici. Throw in a buffalo stampede and an Indian attack and I think you can figure the rest out.

It's good action from Paramount's B picture unit.

Randolph Scott, Harry Carey, and Raymond Hatton trade buffalo hides and fend off bandits led Noah Beery, his fiancé's lecherous stepfather. Shot and left for dead when he comes for his bride, Scott wanders around with his partners, looking for a chance to claim his girl and running afoul of Indians upset at the decimation of the buffalo.

Though not as satisfying as some other entries in Paramount's Zane Grey series, it's still pretty decent with a great cast, excellent production values (for a B-western), and a fairly engaging, though somewhat darker than usual script.

One problem though, is that third-billed Buster Crabbe appears only briefly near the beginning of the film and disappears for the duration of the movie. They should have found some room for him!