The Thundering Herd

Roku has this as buffalo stampede, but imdb has it as thundering herd.

Stars western regular randolph scott and judith allen, in her very first role. In the 1870s, with good prices being paid for buffalo hides, honest cowboys hunted them. And dis-honest thieves tried to hijack them. Co-stars noah beery, buster crabbe. Add a battle with the native american indians. Throw in a love story between the lead characters, and you've got a western. Many of the scenes were cut and pasted from the 1925 silent version, but they are much darker. It's pretty easy to see which are the newer scenes and which are the old. Some great shots of buffalo stampeding, with various snowy mountains in the background. Directed by henry hathaway. Very outspoken and gruff. Some funny quotes in his bio here on imdb. Looks like he worked on seven films with john wayne. Book by the famous and popular zane grey, who had written a zillion and one westerns. According to imdb, this was filmed at the alabama hills and in yellowstone. When you are in lone pine, see if the museum of western film history is open... they might be showing a film that evening, probably written by zane grey. Fun stuff!

Action galore within a well-crafted and beautifully presented story make this one of the very best B westerns ever made.

Randolph Scott's mustache is rather jarring, to those of us who have never seen him with one, but he gives an excellent and athletic performance, joined by one of the finest casts ever assembled in a B western.

Bad guys are really bad, with Noah Beery giving one of his best performances as the worst of the bad guys ... although Mrs. Bad Guy is about as rough and evil as any woman I've ever seen in a B western.

This is not only brilliant story-telling, but it is brilliant acting.

And brilliant directing.

Henry Hathaway surpasses other possibly better-known and more highly regarded directors with his moving camera and his shots of moving horses and wagons and buffalo. (His last years, though, saw him faltering badly as he almost ruined, with the aid of a miserable script from Marguerite Roberts, "True Grit." But admire his work here and don't think about how badly he stumbled toward the end.)

One wonderful aspect of "The Thundering Herd" is an active female lead, played by Judith Allen. OK, maybe there was a stunt man, but so what? The character is one to admire, and one to wish there had been and were now more of: a strong and active female who did more than cower in her man's arms.

Excellent writing, and an excellent and exciting bunch of characters, and an excellent action-packed finale.

"The Thundering Herd" is available at YouTube in a pretty good print. I highly recommend this movie.

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.

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.

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.