Frontier Days

This film is reputed to be one of Bill Cody's best in spite of some of the worst camera work, acting, and directing in the history of westerns. The first omen is in the opening credits where the director, Robert Hill, appears to have been supervised by Al Alf. Imagine such a credit under the name of Howard Hawks or Clint Eastwood.

This film shows either very early use of a hand-held camera, or the camera dollied on rocky ground or a very rough floor without benefit of a track. Lots of home movies are better than this.

At the beginning of the film Hill, who also wrote the screenplay under a pen name, makes an uncredited cameo appearance as Chief Burrows. He is one of the better actors in the film.

As silent screen actors, the cast employs a panoply of quirks, quivers, and tics that were outmoded by 1934 when the film was made. Much of this could have been solved with some editing that simply tightened up the dialog.

Much has been made of Chico the horse, which was featured in the opening credits much as the horses of Tom Mix, Gene Autry, and Roy Rogers. Chico is often left to stand untied until the Kid whistles for him. In one scene the Kid rushes out to call Chico, but the faithful horse is nowhere to be seen. Apparently, he wandered out of camera range, and the Kid had to retrieve him in order to escape.

Twice in the film the Pinto Kid attempts a flying mount, ala the Pony Express riders, but barely gets one leg over the saddle and must clamber up the rest of the way.

At one point the Pinto Kid escapes by crashing through a window. His flight through the air and to the ground is almost Chaplinesque as Cody struggles mightily to subdue his over-sized hat. He rebounds immediately, jamming the hat securely on his head as he scampers out of sight.

Speaking of hats, the cowboy hat of the period generally was "crushed" in the front in the shape of a valley. Much of the time in this film, it looks like the cowboys have crushed their hats with a tomahawk or branding iron, or some such.

One bright spot is in Bill Cody Jr.'s turn as Bart Wilson. As well as deliver his dialog authoritatively, the boy can run as fast as a horse. Late in the film the outlaws leave young Bart tied up, galloping away hell-for-leather. With the help of his burro, Bart wriggles out of the rope and takes off to catch up with the bad guys. Because his donkey is so slow, the young fellow hightails it on foot.

Along the way the Pinto Kid knocks out two of the outlaws, and Bart arrives close behind to tie them up with their belts. When the rest of the outlaws arrive at their hideout full tilt, closely followed by the Kid and Bart, the young guy isn't even breathing hard. All in all, Cody Jr. is a welcome relief from the mess cooked up by the adults.

At that, this is a must-see western that is a textbook lesson in early cinematic techniques.

Frontier Days finds cowboy hero Bill Cody arriving in the local valley and getting involved with the troubles of a family named Wilson. For reasons not disclosed the villain who is banker Wheeler Oakman wants their property real bad. Oakman is of the Snidely Whiplash tradition of villainy, he's the obvious bad guy from the beginning.

Oakman goes so far as to trick Lafe McKee into signing a note and then having him killed while McKee was riding shotgun on a payroll run for Wells Fargo. Then he calls the note in and the rest of the Wilson family, Ada Ince, Franklyn Farnum, and the star's son Bill Cody, Jr. are to be dispossessed. Worse than that, they think that Cody is the villainous mastermind. Cody's reputation as the Pinto Kid doesn't help much either.

Star Cody got his son in this film and young Cody, Jr. had a brief run as a child star. His best known film is playing Nelson Eddy as a child in Girl Of The Golden West.

Too many holes in this story make Frontier Days not a good western.

Not the great scout of the plains but two lesser Bills here and neither of them up to much! Bill Senior is the Pinto Kid (his horse, Chico, is a pinto!),falsely accused of murdering rancher Wilson (Franklyn Farnum), and Billy Junior, Cody's real-life son, is annoying kid brother to Wilson's daughter Beth, played with considerable vacancy by Ada Ince.

Villain Wheeler Oakman hams it up with gusto and Chico answers his master's call as all wonder horses should but, overall, this really is pretty dire. Apart from an impressive name, the star has little to offer and comes across as an affable nonentity in an over-sized hat.

This is, allegedly, Cody's best film: what more can I say?

Bill Cody was one of the first Saturday matinée cowboys to gallop across the big screen, first in silent films, then in several cheaply made talkies in the early 1930's. His name really was William Cody but as far as can be determined he was not related to the famous Buffalo Bill Cody. The moniker helped Bill Cody get his foot in the door and it's likely he would not have starred in any oaters had he been born with a different name.

"Frontier Days" is actually one of Bill Cody's best sound features. That's still not saying a whole lot since he is often credited with having made the worst B western of them all "The Border Menace" in 1934. His real-life son Bill Cody, Jr., helps the picture by giving it a little more zest and energy. In this film, Cody, Jr., plays the younger brother of Beth Wilson (Ada Ince in one of her few movie roles). He's always teasing his sister who becomes struck on the Pinto Kid (Bill Cody). Bart Wilson (Cody, Jr.) takes a liking to the Pinto Kid and continues to stand up for him even when he is framed for the murder of Bart and Beth's father by the bad guys led by Henry Jethrow (Wheeler Oakman) who is determined to get the Wilson ranch using any means possible. Wheeler Oakman plays Jethrow in a manner reminiscent of the Snidely Whiplash type villain popular in the melodramas of the silent era. The Pinto Kid is determined to save the ranch, win the lovely beth, and find the ones who killed her father.

The film is excruciatingly slow moving for a shoot-em-up most of the time. There are a few good fights to liven things up but they are too few and too far between the talking. Bill Cody was one of the fastest of the cowboy pugilists. His style, since he was a fairly little fellow, is similar to the best fighting cowboy of them all Bob Steele. It appears that the cameras used fast speed to make Cody look even quicker whereas Bob Steele's fights seemed to be at normal speed.

Bill Cody also wore a big hat that looked more like a sombrero, similar to one that silent cowboy star Tom Mix wore from time to time. He also rode a little pinto, Chico, who was billed second to Cody in the credits, hence his stage name the Pinto Kid.

The dialog is stilted and much of the acting seems to be a hold over from the silent days even though this film was released in 1934 when most talky actors had either adjusted to the new medium or had fallen by the wayside. The actors spend too much time expressing their feelings by exaggerated eye movements and facial and physical expressions the way it was done on the silent screen.

This film is somewhat of a curio, but still worthwhile for western fans who have never seen a Bill Cody movie. His fisticuffs are entertaining.