To the Last Man

Real Tough Guys depicated in this movie. Great acting and good action sequences for 1933. How many movies can you see likes of Randolph Scott, Shirley Temple, John Carradine, Buster Crabbe and The General from "I Dream of Jeanie" all in one movie! Really recommend this one!

The film itself is an unusual Randolph Scott western which deals with a feud born in the hills of Kentucky that follows a family trying to settle in Nevada. Much of the story and dialog is typical of the standard westerns of the day, but there were a few aspects of the film which made it quite interesting, namely:

• Esther Ralston playing the love interest. I can't recall seeing Esther in a film before, but here she is wonderful as a backwoods girl who doesn't take guff from any man. It's rather amazing to see such a strong female character who can ride a horse without a saddle and is willing to literally fight the bad guys right along with the men.

• The violence from the bad guys is more realistically portrayed and was somewhat shocking to see for a film of this era. Sometimes you can become numb to standard Western action, but in this film the more realistic portrayal of the violence brings home the consequences of their actions.

Overall I enjoyed the film very much. There was also some very nice outdoor scenery shots. This is supposed to be Nevada but I'm not sure where it was actually filmed. The restored print that Turner Classic Films showed looked very good.

This 1933 movie has a top-notch, all-star cast. Noah Beery plays the feuding family villain patriarch. Jack La Rue is his even more evil partner, who wants to seduce his daughter, played by the beautiful Esther Ralston. At 31, she had been a silent move star for many years.

The good guys feature Randolph Scott and Buster Crabbe. They both became very popular actors, and they really look like brothers. Barton MacLane is the third brother. All three are very tall, and in many scenes they are imposing over the villains, so it is kind of cool to watch the three of them together. John Carradine is also one of the good guys.

Perhaps the biggest surprise is to see Shirley Temple, playing the role of one of the daughters of Buster Crabbe. She is shot at by the villains at one point, and the shooter blows the head off her favorite doll, which Randolph Scott had given her. Shooting at children (and later dogs) is pretty brutal, and little Shirley Temple runs away screaming and crying her little eyes out.

This is a nice movie which fleshes out the family dynamics of both the good Haydens, and the vicious ex-convicts in the Colby family. Naturally Randolph Scott (Hayden) and Esther Ralston (Colby) are in love, but this does not stop any of the killings, murders, and mayhem.

The shock ending cannot even be hinted at. I have never seen any Western movie end like this. Immediately afterwards, there is a final showdown between Esther Ralston and Randolph Scott against Jack La Rue. A surprising double-shock ending.

The transfer of this film is horrible. It has been released by Alpha Video under the title of Law of Vengeance. THe movie starts off slow and is something of an oddity in the beginning. Law of Vengeance is the only film that I have seen that shows the actors credit on the screen when they enter the picture. For example, Randoplh Scott's character makes his entrance at 20 minutes into the picture. It is then that the screen credit "Randolph Scott as Lynn Hayden" rolls across the screen. I thought this was interesting.

About 30 minutes into this western the story starts to get good. Mostly due to Scott and the female character known as Ellen Colby. The dialogue is very good in places.

This western is of importance for a film historian. Not only was it directed by Henry Hathaway, it also stars Buster Crabbe, Barton Mclane, Jake Larue and two uncredited performances by a very young Shirley Temple and a young John Carradine. This film was important in the career of Randoplh Scott and if you are a fan of his, you definitely want to own this movie. At a price less that 5 dollars, it is surely worth it.

After spending fifteen years in prison for killing the patriarch of a rival clan, Noah Beery heads west to continue the family feud that turned him into a murderer. While he attempts to goad his rivals into another round of killing, Beery's daughter falls for Randolph Scott, who as a boy watched him murder his grandfather.

Another decent entry in Paramount's Zane Grey series, this features early performances from Scott and Buster Crabbe, as well as an early directing job for the great Henry Hathaway.

It's also fairly interesting in it's use of the old silent film trick of introducing each cast member as they appear, via a subtitle and a little bit of precode skinny dipping.

Speaking of precode, this appears to be pre-common-sense as well, when in one scene a young Shirley Temple is sitting outside and a hidden bad guy shoots her doll in the head, which is only a few feet away. This might not seem very alarming today, but this was before the invention of modern special effects, when film studios employed actual sharpshooters for these types of scenes, a practice that was abandoned when James Cagney refused to do another film that involved him being shot at.

In other words, A LIVE ROUND WAS FIRED PAST SHIRLEY'S HEAD!!