Auf in den Kampf

Perhaps a little historical perspective might assist some of today's viewers of this film. (Those viewing the film in 1939 would have been naturally much more knowledgeable of that history than most viewers today.)

The film "Stand Up And Fight" (USA, 1939) depicts a fictional story within a complex and multi-faceted historical background. The story is set in 1844 Cumberland Maryland, which became a key east-west point along the westward settler route through the Appalachian Mountains, and a key north-south point along the underground railroad assisting escaped slaves -- when the B&O Railroad opened in 1842, the nation's first Telegraph lines went operational, and the C&O Canal opened in 1850 -- all using rights of way along the same Potomac River that flows past Cumberland and on down past Washington DC.

Within this context the story concerns a pre-Civil War racket involving the capture and reselling of fugitive slaves in a key border location between abolitionist North and slavery South just as the railroad was beginning to compete hard against the stagecoach and wagon trains, and the canal was about to move huge quantities of coal out of the mountains. Most of the laborers building the railroad, the canal, the telegraph and the coal mines were uneducated and impoverished recent escapees from the British-oppressed serf plantation of Ireland.

Mid-way along that 120-mile Potomac River route between Cumberland and Washington is strategic Harper's Ferry, where the Shenandoah river meets the Potomac and where John Brown's Raid on an armory in 1859 began to galvanize large portions of the nation's public opinion on each side of the slavery/secession issue. At the time of Brown's raid, Harper's Ferry was in the big slavery (Confederate) state of Virginia, which was also the state just across the river in Cumberland in the abolitionist (Union) state of Maryland.

The American Civil War began in April 1961. West Virginia became a state a few months later following the Wheeling Conventions of 1861, in which abolitionist delegates from 30 northwestern Virginia counties decided to break away from Virginia. West Virginia immediately became a key Civil War border state and was formally admitted to the Union in June 1863. West Virginia was the only state to form by separating from a Confederate state, the first to separate from any state since Maine separated from Massachusetts in 1820.

The north-south terrain of the Appalachian Mountains is what enabled General Lee to move a huge Confederate army through the Shenandoah all the way north into Pennsylvania to meet a similar huge Union army at Gettysburg – far behind Northern "lines" – during the first three days of July in 1863.

This film probably would have been better if Robert Taylor was pitted against Charles Bickford rather than Wallace Berry. I didn't believe their confrontation, but I do believe that if Taylor was up against Bickford then their confrontation would be believable. Taylor redeems himself by demanding that enslaved African-Americans be sold as a family rather than splitting them up. The film would have been better if we had an enslaved African-American character that we could identify with. The fugitive African-American is too old to be sold as a house slave and is in danger of being killed off as he is unsaleable. Taylor befriends him and we have the germ of an intimate acquaintanceship. This subject matter was dealt with better in 'Roots'.

In casting Robert Taylor in Stand Up And Fight, MGM was trying to broaden his appeal. His first few films established him as a handsome, but callow youth. Camille was a typical part for him. In doing this film, A Yank at Oxford, and Killer McCoy, MGM was trying to create a more masculine image for its heart throb.

Taylor plays the impoverished heir of a plantation in Maryland who is forced to sell his assets which of course in that society included black slaves. He's forced to go to work for a living and he gets a job with the new Baltimore and Ohio Railroad.

The B&O's main competition is a stage and freight line which does a side business in capturing runaway slaves and returning them to their masters. The guys doing this are Charles Bickford and Barton MacLane with a wink and nod from manager Wallace Beery.

It's quite a culture shock for Taylor. He's grown up believing that blacks might be human, but of an inferior brand. The business that Bickford and MacLane are in disgusts him.

Taylor and Beery got good notices for this film. Starting out as antagonists both in business and generationally, they gain a grudging respect for the other.

The depiction of blacks as menials is the reason Stand Up And Fight is not broadcast too often. You run into a peculiar conundrum in dealing with movies about slavery. Because of the position they're in blacks have to act as subservient simply to survive and that in itself becomes offensive.

Roots changed all of that, but by that time Robert Taylor and Wallace Beery were gone as was director Woody Van Dyke. Stand Up And Fight surely isn't Roots by any means, but considering the era it was probably groundbreaking for its day, as was Paramount's Souls at Sea a few years earlier. Not many films dealt with slavery at all.

Cynical Southern gentleman Blake Cantrell (Robert Taylor) is forced to sell his plantation and seek employment with a stagecoach company run by Captain Starkey (Wallace Beery) and owned by lovely Susan (Florence Rice). But is the company actually illegally transporting slaves? And can a leopard, the cavalier Blake, actually change its spots?

I didn't expect much from this movie, and was thoroughly and positively surprised by the sharp writing and ebullient acting, and contrary to many A-movies of its day its aim is no way an aesthetic 'arty' one. Made in 1939, this movie addresses all sorts of controversial issues, and they have a way of taking you by surprise along the way. The movie is really about abolitionism and treats its subject with remarkable subtlety, although why and how the lynch-mob, the one that we encounter in the last third of the film, goes after white man Starkey is never made quite clear. Cantrell's gradual moral reform is well-explained and plausible, not least because of Taylor's warmth and humanity in the part. Yes, he is handsome, but here it is almost besides the point. Wallace Beery has a field day with the larger-than-life captain, very cleverly balancing on the edge of buffoonery but with plenty of edge and ambiguity.

See it, it makes a deep impression.

This is not your typical cowboy movie, or 'western' Stand up and Fight has good character development, and attempts to be historically accurate for the 1840s. While the dialog Robert Taylor must deliver to explain his position on selling his slaves seems more a 20th century attitude, it is reflecting some of the 19th century writings that have come down to us- but certainly not a justification. This movie piqued my curiosity about what train was used in the train scenes. After a little research, I found it to be the replica built in 1927 of the Norris Lafayette 4-2-0. The replica was built for the 'Fair of the Iron Horse' and B&O's anniversary. This train is in the Baltmore and Ohio railroad museum in Maryland, along with what appear to be the same passenger cars used in the movie. Apparently it is still working, and is occasionally taken out and run. There are you tube videos of it.

Wonderful scenes of this train running are had in the movie. The Lafayette is an historic train, so train lovers, enjoy.