Cavalry

Lively oater with a storyline fit for an A-production. In fact, budget-minded Republic went all out hiring extras and riding them around Kernville locations. Plot-wise, the Civil War has ended and folks are moving west for a new life. Trouble is some southern anti-Unionists are conspiring for a separate new country in the West, and are colluding with Indians to establish it. Union army's Capt. Thorne (Steele) is assigned to thwart the separatist plans.

Steele plays it fairly straight, no steely glares he was later so good at. Also, he gets one really acrobatic fight scene, along with a winsome leading lady, Grant, as diversion from all the ugly guys. I don't know how much action is from stock shots, but the many story threads are woven smoothly together, quite a feat especially for director Bradbury who's also Steele's real life dad.

In passing-- note how respectfully both Civil War sides, North and South, are treated; plus, how happy the ex-slaves appear to stay on the plantation. I doubt this thread would pass today's muster.

Anyway, it's a superior oater, sure to entertain all front-row kids, past and present.

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.

: 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.

This film begins at the tail end of the Civil War with a Confederate officer by the name of "Colonel Lafe Harvey" (Earle Ross) arriving at a plantation to tell his niece "Betty Lee Harvey" (Frances Grant) that her father "General John Harvey" (William Welsh) had recently been killed in action. To make matters even worse, as she is being informed of this bad news an alarm is sounded that a guerilla militia is approaching with the intention of destroying everything in their path. Although both Betty Lee and Colonel Lafe Harvey manage to escape in the nick of time, the plantation is burned and looted leaving them with little recourse than to pack what few possessions they can find and head out west to make a new start. As luck would have it, a week or so later a Union officer by the name of "Captain Ted Thorne" (Bob Steele) arrives at the old plantation and with him is none other than General John Harvey who has been temporarily blinded in combat. Recognizing that his companion is in no shape to travel any further, Captain Thorne leaves General Harvey there to be taken care of and heads back to Washington D. C. as ordered. It's then that he is given an order by President Lincoln to head out west to prevent a telegraph line from being destroyed by Rebel sympathizers who are intent on recreating the Confederacy and using the current Indian territories as a buffer between them and the Union. What Captain Thorne doesn't realize, however, is that the guerillas who burned and looted the Harvey plantation are the same people intent on destroying the telegraph line and to that end they have joined the same wagon train transporting Colonel Lafe Harvey and Betty Lee. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that this is a low-budget production made only a few years after sound was introduced in American filmography and as such the overall picture quality leaves much to be desired. Additionally, the script and the acting are somewhat lacking in that regard as well. It does, however, have a unique quality about it and if given some latitude might be of some interest to viewers who enjoy old films from this particular era. That said, while it definitely has it faults, I found it to be worth the time spent to watch it and for that reason I have cut it some slack and rated it accordingly. Average.

Admittedly, 1930's westerns are not everyone's "cup of tea". However, when viewed in context, they offer fine entertainment in a short amount of running time. This 1936 oater by Bob Steele is no exception. In this film, written and directed by his Dad, Steele demonstrates the scrappy likabilty that made him a star for several decades.

In this film, Steele is a Captain trying to protect a much-needed telegraph line from the shady Leeds. While many of the co-stars are unknown to today's audiences, the great Earl Dwire makes a notable appearance. Dwire and Steele make this one a must see for fans of early western talkies.

Enjoy this one pardners, Bob Steele was one of the best !