Luck of Roaring Camp

When an orphaned baby is left at a mining town, the men who founded the site agree to be its godfathers and give a share of their earnings to support it. But when a big strike is made, they forget about that, leaving Owen Davis Jr. To tend to the infant.

It's a Monogram picture, the last ever directed by Irvin Willat. The movie is all right, but it ignores the wild eccentrics that Bret Harte peopled his stories with. Instead, it substitutes sentiment, and the sole example of Harte's quixotry is shown by Charles Brokaw as a gambler willing to give his life so that the baby, Davis, and good-girl saloon performer Joan Woodbury can have a chance.

Harte's initial name came from this sort of story. Like Mark Twain, he first made a name for himself with these stories of the wild and woolly sort of folks who found themselves in California in those days. But interest remains in Twain's works, while Harte has faded from consciousness.

I always feel kind of sad that a classic short story from an author like Bret Harte didn't rate one of the major studios filming it. Monogram did this adaption of Luck Of Roaring Camp and it shows in lack of production values.

There is one advantage though, they'll be no identification with any name stars so Bret Harte's characters stand or fall on what this group of unknowns make of them.

They didn't do a bad job. A pregnant woman Sheila Bromley whose husband escaped the hangman's noose arrives in Roaring Camp dying. She gives birth to a baby boy, commends his care to the men of the camp and dies. When a big strike happens afterward he earns the name Luck that the miners bestowed on him.

After a while the only one who cares about the kid and his care is young Own Davis, Jr. and traveling showgirl Joan Woodbury. Then a mysterious Hatfield like gambler Charles Brokaw shows up and he in one of those 'the Lord moves in mysterious ways' methods settles it all for the future of Luck.

For Monogram they didn't do bad in creating a realistic looking mining camp and Bret Harte's story is faithfully followed. It's one of the better products coming out of poverty row.