Wild West Days

Universal Pictures Corporation's 35th sound-era serial (attributing itself as "The NEW UNIVERSAL during this period) is tag-lined on the films and the posters and the ads as "13 Thrill-Smash Authentic Episodes Based On W.R.BURNETT'S Famous Novel "SAINT JOHNSON"... (written exactly as cased here.) The novel was Burnett's version of the Earp-Clanton Tombstone period, with the names of all participants changed, and first saw screen light in 1932's "Law and Order," starring Walter Huston and where son John Huston got his first screen play credit. Universal trotted a version of Burnett's novel out four times from 1932 to 1953.

On this serial version, Wyndham Gittens, Norman S. Hall and Ray Trampe are credited with...Original Story and Screen Play (written exactly like that)...and about all that is retained of the basis source, as written by Burnette in the novel, is a retired lawman and three former deputys and a gambler friend come to town---Brimstone in this case--- and everything from that point is a NEW story from The NEW Universal. "Based on" barely qualifies in this case.

Retired lawman Kentucky Wade (John Mack Brown) and his three buddies, Mike Morales (Frank Yaconelli), "Dude" Hanford (George Shelly) and "Trigger" Benton (Bob Kortman, as one of the good guys for a change)come to Brimstone and help their friends Larry Munro (Frank McGlynn, Jr.) and his sister, Lucy (Lynn Gilbert), in their fight to retain control of Larry's rich ore mine. "Doc" Hardy ( a thinly-disguised "Doc" Holliday character played by Walter Miller), as an old friend of Wade's, joins them in their efforts to keep Matt Keeler (Russell Simpson), the scheming owner of "The Brimstone News", from his efforts to wrest control of Munro's property and mine. Keller employs a legion of who's-whos from Central Casting's Henchman Division---Francis McDonald, Charles Stevens, Alan Bridge and Bud Osborne among them---and sidelines at running runs guns to Red Hatchet (Chief Thunderbird) and his tribe so they can also get in on the fray against the Munro's and Kentucky and friends.

Filled from front-to-back with stock footage from earlier Universal serials (including footage from the silent era which served to jar the speed-projected nerves, including some of the cliffhangers,) but no shortage of well-delineated characters on both sides of the good-bad fence, which was not unusual in Universal's serials at the time. George Shelly sings two songs, here and there, written by Kay Kellogg and sometimes hard to flash-forward through as there is oft-times dialogue, incidents and plot developments going on at the same time.

But it is a "movie-movie" serial-serial and, as such, and judged only by when-why-and who it was made for standards, has nothing to be ashamed of. And Charles Stevens doing his usual renegade half-breed adds points, also. Plus gap-toothed Bob Kortman fighting on the side of the angels for a change.

That alone, makes it a keeper.

I watched Wild West Days over a period of about two weeks. Every chapter was filled with plenty of action and plot twists. Too often a serial can be described as "they fight over here, then they fight over there, and then they fight over here again." In Wild West Days there are several times where the action takes place in the same locations, but the plot is well served by the repetition. There were no boring chapters in this story driven serial. Something that makes the plot different from other westerns is that a man finds a platinum mine rather than a gold mine. The bad guys' search for the location of the platinum and Kentucky Wade's determination to stop them are the reasons for this adventure.

Instead of a trio we get four cowboys plus a strong willed rancher fighting the bad guys. Johnny Mack Brown looked every bit the part of a 30's western hero in his role as Kentucky. He was taller than most of the people around him, and he was always the best dressed. Brown's deep voice made him a natural leading man. Frank Yaconelli was perfect as the comical yet serious Mexican comrade, Mike. George Shelley, as Dude, got to court the girl and do all the singing. Although Yaconelli's guitar playing was for show rather than accompaniment during Shelley's songs, it was nice to see that he really was a musician as opposed to an actor faking playing a guitar. Bob Kortman was the sharp and wise gunslinger, Trigger. I was used to seeing him as a bad guy, so this was a fun turnaround. Frank McGlynn, Jr. is Larry Munro, but he really does not do much until halfway through the chapters.

To balance the good guys, there are a lot of bad guys: The Secret Seven who are able to use the nearby Indian tribe to do their dirty work, or just round up men whenever needed to go out to commit their crimes. The worst of the bunch are Keeler (Russell Simpson), Buckskin (Charles Stevens), and Steve Claggett (Al Bridge, whose name was at the bottom of the credits). Chief Thunderbird was a real Indian, and as Chief Red Hatchet he really added authenticity to the Indians in the movie.

Every character was well defined, and their personalities were well developed by the end. It made me wish for more adventures. Not only were the characters well portrayed, the costuming was unique for every cowboy. The businessmen wore suits that may have been slightly different, but each cowboy could be identified immediately by his clothes. Dude, Trigger, Larry, and Claggett could be identified by their vests alone. Mike had his vaquero outfit. Buckskin had his buckskin outfit. Kentucky Wade had the most incredible clothing and was very conscientious about it, too. More than once he mentions having to change clothes or asking someone to get him a new shirt. In fact, Kentucky knew that a hat and shirt must go together in order to look like the western hero that he was. For a couple of chapters Kentucky wears a white shirt and white hat instead of the black shirt and hat worn through the rest of the serial. The reason, of course, was so an old shot of a cowboy and horse leaping off of a cliff into some water could be used. It was cheaper to have an actor change clothes than to recreate the stunt.