The Silver Horde

This film, originally made by RKO but fallen into the public domain, is probably not going to appeal to most people, and not even to most fans of precode. However, it is still interesting viewing. It was made in 1930 - that first full year of all-talking pictures, and we are beginning to see the end of some silent acting careers and the beginning of some talking ones.

The story is that of Boyd Emerson (Joel McCrea), a man who wanders into a very unfriendly Alaskan town. He practically breaks down the door of the town lady of the evening, Cherry Malotte (Evelyn Brent), and demands hospitality, which kind of spoils the idea behind hospitality in the first place. Boyd is in love with a society girl, Mildred Wayland (Jean Arthur), but needs to prove himself worthy to her dad before they can marry. He decides to make his home in this small Alaskan outpost and set up a salmon fishery to compete against that of his underhanded and better capitalized rival for Mildred's hand, Frederick Marsh.

Everyone from "San Francisco to Sitka" apparently knows about Cherry's profession, everyone but Boyd. Cherry uses her bodily assets at one point to insure Boyd gets the loan he needs to start his fishery, without Boyd knowing of course. When he finds out what Cherry does and that she did it at least once to help him, fireworks ensue.

Evelyn Brent was a holdover from the silents, and this is the best talking role I've seen her in. She delivers her hooker's manifesto speech to anemic society girl Mildred with gusto that rivals Barbara Stanwyck in "Baby Face". Jean Arthur is stiff as a board and unrecognizable here as the star of the screwball comedies that are to follow, and it is ironic that in spite of that stiff performance and Brent's animated one that Arthur's star is to rise and Brent's is to fall very shortly.

Louis Wolheim is another holdover from the silents. They just don't know what to do with him here and so they basically make him a mindless brute that enjoys busting heads open. He is much better served in 1931's "Danger Lights", and so is Jean Arthur for that matter.

In 1930, as films were making the transition from silent to talkies, this pre-code film was released. It even contains a few title cards.

"The Silver Horde" refers to the running salmon as they attempt to make their way from the ocean to the rivers, improbably jumping upstream. The protagonist played by Joel McCrea is a man who runs a cannery. As he falls for a woman of bad reputation, he fights another canner who plays dirty.

The scenes of harvesting fish and inside a cannery are snapshots of an industry's state of the art.

The lily-white society girl who desires to reel in McCrea is played by Jean Arthur with no glimpse of the screwball comedienne she would become. She pales in comparison to the bad girl, played by Evelyn Brent, appropriately called Cherry.

This average film is interesting for its place in the development in cinema.

Is there a fan of old-timey Hollywood films out there who is NOT in love with Jean Arthur? With her wholesome good looks, spunky demeanor, inimitable cracked voice and superb acting abilities, Arthur was certainly amongst the top-tier comedic actresses of the '30s and '40s. "The Silver Horde" is an early talkie that she appeared in five years before her breakthrough role in 1935's "The Whole Town's Talking." In this one she is third billed, and her part is a subsidiary one, playing a "pasty-faced namby-pamby" society dame; the fiancée of Joel McCrea, who is trying to get a salmon cannery up and running in the wilds of Alaska. McCrea is being secretly abetted by hooker turned businesswoman Evelyn Brent, while his chances of success are constantly being endangered by a rival operation across the bay. Anyway, this is a pretty taut little picture. It moves along briskly, and features some convincing exterior shots. It also boasts at least three very fine sequences: a dukeout between McCrea and a big Swede who wants to quit his job; a face-off between Arthur and Brent over their common love interest (the viewer's sympathies are wholly with Brent, in this case); and a fascinating look at just how salmon are caught, processed and wind up in cans. You'll never look at your salmon salad the same way again, I promise you! Oh...one other thing. The folks at Alpha Video have done it again; yet another DVD with poor picture quality and even lousier sound. This company has a huge catalog of films available, but when will it realize that quality is just as important as quantity?

After spending two, hard years searching for gold in the northernmost part of Alaska, two friends named "Boyd Emerson" (Joel McCrea) and "Fraser" (Raymond Hatton) finally decide to give up on their dream and head back south to civilization. On the way, however, they happen to stop in a small village where they meet a wealthy woman named "Cherry Malotte" (Evelyn Brent) who provides them with food and lodging for the next few days. It's during this time that Boyd is informed by Cherry that there is a lucrative business opportunity right there in that same village focusing on a totally different resource other than gold--salmon. The problem is that part of the bay where the salmon spawn is owned by a ruthless businessman named "Fred Marsh" (Gavid Gordon) who will do whatever it takes to prevent anyone else from setting up a rival fish cannery in that area. Even so, Boyd soon becomes intent upon opening one up and, with Cherry's help, he travels to Seattle to obtain the necessary money from a bank. While there he also runs into his girlfriend "Mildred Wayland" (Jean Arthur) who loves him very much and wants to marry him as soon as possible. What Boyd doesn't realize, however, is that Cherry has also fallen in love with him and that, sooner or later, he will have to make a choice between them. Now, rather than reveal any more, I will just say that this turned out to be a rather entertaining film--especially since it was produced so long ago. Admittedly, there were more than a few times the film showed its age, but even so, I enjoyed it for the most part and I have rated it accordingly. Slightly above average.

Although I enjoy old movies, this was just a bit to early for my liking. It was an early talky movie and you could tell by watching it that the equipment that it was filmed on and the actors and actresses were vintage. That being said, it was an interesting movie and easy to watch. Very simplistic plot with not much depth as was the case in this period of cinematography. It was very typical of the time period plot line where the guy gets the girl, even though she has a reputation of being a bad girl. The scenes that showed the actual canning of the salmon was of interest to me, in that it gave a glance back in history of the processing plant and early machinery.