Cavalry

Dad Bradbury writes and directs one of his best efforts. Bob Steele comes on the scene in heroic style as a Yankee soldier saving a Confederate General. Meanwhile, beautiful Frances Grant and her Uncle Lafe (Earle Ross) are burned out by guerrilla warfare. Also, one of the most versatile actors ever, Hal Price along with henchmen Karl Hackett and Ed Cassidy give the wagon train folk and telegraph people more than they bargained for. Great work also by Budd Buster who plays a dual roll as Honest Abe and the wagon master.

Robert North Bradbury is due a lot from us lovers of B Westerns: stories, direction, and two sons who starred in dozens or scores of pictures.

Mr. Bradbury directed his more famous son, known as Bob Steele, in this unusual movie of the time after the War Against Southern Independence.

The beginning is marred with stock footage of battles, then erases any complaints with a heart-tugging scene complete with some beautifully harmonized soul singing. No spoiler: Please watch it.

Then some irony is added to the story. Again, no spoiler.

Probably the ultimate direction of the action will become apparent to any viewer, but never mind. It's still a great story, beautifully written (although admittedly sometimes the dialogue seems a bit stilted, other times it's clever, other times it's perfectly realistic), beautifully directed (lots of angles and attention to detail), and beautifully acted.

So many players who don't get screen credit, such as Martin Turner who plays Mose, and one who plays Mammie is not even credited here at IMDb, which is rare, give more than adequate performances.

I watched this at YouTube, compliments of Westerns on the Web (and God Bless everyone concerned), and marveled at several levels of superb B Western entertainment.

Just one example: There is a super fight scene between the hero and the action heavy (well played by the great Karl Hackett), one of the best I've seen. Again I have to wonder why Bob Steele never played in a boxing film. He sure had the moves and athleticism.

"Cavalry" is an excellent title, an excellent movie, and I highly recommend it. (Admission: I really hate it when stars I like play Yankees, but I follow the advice sung by Tom Lehrer and I sublimate, sublimate, sublimate. So I enjoyed the movie.)

By the way, watch for Bud (sometimes called Budd) Buster in a really surprising role, and enjoy how director Bradbury films it.

I was surprised that so many reviewers here wax lyrical over this-maybe I'm missing something! Anyway:

Robert N. Bradbury-directed oater with his wooden son-in-law Bob Steele; infantile script but thankfully the proceedings are brisk; hoary tale set just post-Civil War: evil renegade raiders escape West and join up with a nutter trying to establish an independent state (presumably Texas); Bob sorts it all out and even turns the Indians against the rogues; there is the obligatory saloon fistfight with windmill-like arms flaying, painfully slow speech (reading boards?), and the goodie eavesdropping on the baddies from 3 open paces! There is also obvious stock footage. The usual mistaken identities are all resolved in the end, and the gal's supposed dead Pa turns up courtesy of Bob.

I found this on a specialist Western site-just as well as I doubt that any mainline channel would now show this-even with a warning-as there is quite an extended sequence near the beginning where the Southern gal and her uncle tell their slaves that they are free-this inspires a sorrowful musical "Gospel Spiritual" lament with much eye rolling and hand wringing as the "Massers" depart! Quite cringey even allowing for the era in which it was made.

Ticked off in my master encyclopedia, never to be seen again...

: In the aftermath of the Civil War, Bob Steele is promoted to Captain and sent by President Lincoln on a secret mission out west: there are rumors that a telegraph line is to be sabotaged and a group of Southerners is planning to start an independent nation, inciting te Indians to fight the US as a buffer. Investigate and stop them!

Steele's first movie for Republic makes clear use of the larger budgets and better facilities that Herbert Yates had for his B westerns. The sets are better, allowing cameraman Bert Longenecker to move his camera back for a better field of vision; there are more extras to fill out the crowds and action scenes (even though only Earl Dwire seems too have come over from the old stock company that Bob and his father, writer-director Robert Bradbury had). For his earlier pictures, Steele might have a crowd of a dozen people in one bar scene, and perhaps thirty men on horseback for the big final scene. Here, we have a couple of dozen people in a wagon train, a town scene with fifteen or twenty, and the big final scene.

It's not all gravy, though. The opening sequence has Bob leading a blinded Confederate general back to his plantation where the loyal ex-slaves have just seen his brother off; they wept and sang sad songs at his departure, like he would be coming back to lynch them all if they did not. Neither, despite a pretty good script, do we get to see Bob Steele do much in the way of personal action. It's well into the movie before he gets into a fist fight, and otherwise, he spends a lot of time talking .... not what one looks at a B movie for.

Still, it's a good story and it's good to see Bob get a good budget, despite a few tropes that have aged disgracefully.

I have to give credit to Republic Pictures for the villainy in this Bob Steele film Cavalry. Rarely have I seen a villain like Karl Hackett have such an immense scheme as this one. Such villainy on a grand scale deserved a much bigger budget than Herbert J. Yates could ever have given a film.

Hackett is a disgruntled former Confederate who doesn't believe in surrendering. He's got nothing less on his mind than the establishment of another country in the west, separated by a buffer Indian nation between the Mississippi and his new Confederacy. This means arming the Indians and also preventing the construction of a telegraph.

Which is what Captain Bob Steele of the Union Army is sent out west to do, protect the telegraph and find out who and what's behind the sabotaging of it. Along the way there's time for a little romance with Frances Grant another disgruntled southerner.

Cavalry is not too bad a B western from Republic, their product was usually a cut above Monogram and various fly by night outfits.