The Great Meadow

Johnny Mack Brown and Eleanor Boardman play a pair of young lovers who sign on with Daniel Boone played by John Miljan to go west and settle the wilderness that is Kentucky. They go through the usual travails of a pioneer couple.

Something similar happens to Brown that happened to Boone in real life. He's captured by the Shawnee after he kills their chief and is held prisoner for two years. Boardman thinking he's dead marries best friend Gavin Gordon. I think you can figure out the rest.

This was a big budget item for MGM in 1931. Nice realistic scenes of the pioneer experience. Only that the big Indian attack is made like the prairie tribes would do, on horseback. I guess that's what Indian attacks are supposed to look like. In fact too many horses in the film at all.

Still this was a good drama and the players acquit themselves well.

It would be easy to relegate this 1931 film as outdated and with wooden acting, but its strength comes from depicting the sacrifices made by women who accompanied their husbands and families to Kentucky during the Revolutionary War. There is very little glamour in this film, but lots of interesting little scenes in which women do the cooking laundry, spinning of cloth, candle-making, and other tasks that women must surely have done in the 18th century frontier. I haven't seen any other film in which women took center stage. The women demonstrate their courage in fighting back against Indian attack, in enduring the hardships of freezing weather, starvation, and other challenges. This film is worth anyone's time in seeing just how realistic the scenes were shot.

The Great Meadow (1931)

** (out of 4)

A group of Virginians led by Berk Jarvis (Johnny Mack Brown) decide to take the dangerous journey to Kentucky hoping for a better life. This film takes place in 1777 and the "quality" of this early talkie will have you thinking it was shot during that time as well. THE GREAT MEADOW is far from being great but there are several very good and exciting moments scattered throughout it. The only problem is that there are some very bad moments scattered throughout it as well. For the most part I think film buffs or fans of early talkies should at least be somewhat interesting in the film. The highlight is without question the various fight scenes that are sprinkled throughout. The majority of the time the settlers are fighting off Indian attacks and there's a pretty tense sequence where one breaks into a cabin with two women. Of course, this here also contains one of the very bad thing and that's the "reaction" of the woman not being attacked. The film starts off incredibly boring as we have to listen to everyone talking about whether they should go on this journey or not but it certainly picks up when we see them trying to get their equipment through the territory. Again, the action scenes are great and it's too bad we've got so many things that didn't work. The screenplay itself doesn't seem to know what it wants to do as the characters are all rather bland and there's really not much direction and there's especially a lack of energy at times. The sound quality is also pretty bland as is the direction. Fans of the lead star will enjoy seeing him here, although his performance makes the character feel like a really dumb redneck. The supporting performances are a rather mixed bag but the majority of them fall closer to bad than good.

THE GREAT MEADOW is an early talkie "western" about settlers moving from Virginia, across the Appalachian Mountains into Kentucky. The film stars Johnny Mack Brown and Eleanor Boardman as a newly married couple who make the trek to "the great meadow" because of a speech given by Daniel Boone.

This is a solid film with excellent production values that do not glorify or simplify frontier life in 18th century America. Life is rugged and tenuous with starvation, illness, and Indian attacks all a part of everyday life.

Brown is solid as the impetuous settler who is up to any task of frontier life. He leads the band of settlers across the rugged mountains and keeps them moving despite the hardships. After his mother is killed by the Indians, he foolishly embarks on a journey of revenge. Boardman, who made only a handful of talkies, is quite good as the naïve young woman who trudges forth with her husband, only to be abandoned by him.

The supporting cast includes solid work by Lucille LaVerne (the mother), Gavin Gordon as Brown's rival, Russell Simpson, Julie Haydon, Dale Fuller, Guinn Williams, Anita Louise, Virginia Sale, Sarah Padden, John Miljan, and Helen Jerome Eddy as the woman driven crazy by Indian attacks.

Worth looking for.

One doesn't watch this movie for it's somewhat uninspired acting, especially by Johnny Mack Brown, who no matter what film he was in only seemed to have one acting style. However, the realistic portrayal of the hardships faced by early settlers in the 18th century is the real reason to view this film. Those problems included weather, terrain, American Indians, and internal disagreements.

The only two failures of this verisimilitude are Eleanor Boardman's pristine complexion throughout the movie and the hero's decision to leave his family and the other settlers and single-handedly take revenge on the leader of the Indian tribe that had been attacking the fort and surrounding settlements.