Northern Frontier

Galloping horses. more galloping. Canadian Mounties doing tricks on horseback. Made by Maurice Conn, who was quite a mover and a shaker in the 1930s. Check out his bio page here on imdb. This is a story of a Canadian mountie who infiltrates a gang of counterfeiters to gather evidence against them. Our hero is Kermit Maynard ... he and his brother Ken were cowboys in films for years. Rumor was that Ken had been with the Buffalo Bill shows, but who knows for sure. Ken Maynard is the countie mountie who gains the acceptance of the crooks, and is trying to find out all he can about the operation. It's pretty good. Directed by Sam Newfield - made TONS of B or C films, under many different names so the public wouldn't know that it was one guy producing so many films in such a short time! This one is currently showing on Epix vault channel. and keep your eyes open for one Walter Brennan...

The two biggest names who were not yet big names are far down the cast list of Northern Frontier. This is an unpretentious low budget quickie shot for a Poverty Row outfit called Ambassador Pictures. I will say that the low budget aspects of it are somewhat masked by the location shooting at Big Bear Lake to use as the Canadian Northern Frontier.

The film stars Kermit Maynard and he gets involved in a racket that involves both selling and smuggling animal skins and using counterfeit money as well. When another Mountie stumbles on to the racket, Maynard's brought in.

Turns out Kermit's got a big stake in this one. His girl friend is Eleanor Hunt and her dad is being forced to work for the convicts. In fact the big boss of the outfit, perennial B western villain LeRoy Mason is really planning to double cross everybody in a very special way.

Walter Brennan has a small role as a stuttering cook who works with Mason who abuses him and doesn't have patience for him even when Brennan catches on that Maynard is a Mountie. Brennan had been in a lot of films mostly westerns for years. The same year Northern Frontier was out, Brennan got his first real critical notices in Samuel Goldwyn's Barbary Coast.

When we first meet Maynard before he's given his assignment, he's giving riding lessons to some newly minted Mounties. One of them is Tyrone Power who you will have some trouble recognizing. That's his credit listing in the cast. He'd be off to the newly formed 20th Century Fox studio for fame and fortune right after this film.

Northern Frontier is an unpretentious B Northwestern with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police getting their men as always. And this was a year before Nelson Eddy sang a note in a Mountie uniform.

I love old movies and often try to see all of a great actor's films. However, this is often tough, as many actors began in 'small' pictures...ones that might not even exist today or might be difficult to find. Such is the case of two of Tyrone Powers' movies...early ones where he was a bit player and are nearly impossible to find. Fortunately, one of these, "Northern Frontier", has turned up on my watchlist and it's currently on Amazon Prime.

This movie is a cheap B-movie...from a small studio and with a brief runtime as well as a second-tier star, Kermit Maynard. As for Power, he's just in an uncredited role as a Mountie! And, speaking of Mounties, films about the Mounted Police in Canada were pretty popular in the 1930s and 40s. They were sort of like the westerns of the day...just with Canadian locales and Canadian police!

The story is about counterfeiters who are spreading fake American dollars in Canada. To find the ringleaders of this gang, Mack (Maynard) goes undercover...posing as a baddie.

The film is certainly NOT a distinguished B. Kermit, while apparently a nice guy in real life, is pretty limp in the lead. Additionally, the movie lacks music and looks pretty cheap. I also hated seeing Walter Brennan playing a guy with a huge stutter...a gimmick that wears thin pretty quickly. Overall, I think the current score of 5.9 seems awfully high and I'd give it a 3 instead.