In this early exercise in widescreen filmmaking - presently available in a magnificent high definition print on YouTube - Raoul Walsh makes good use of the new process both in outdoor scenes (including the usual encirclement of the wagons and culminating in a showdown in a blizzard) and chiaroscuro interior lighting effects.
Among the many impressive sights the film provides the most impressive is probably of a fresh-faced young John Wayne - apparently recommended to Walsh by John Ford - who demonstrates the grace and ease in front of a camera that ultimately would sustain a forty year film career.
Anyone looking for Tyrone Power be warned the name on the opening credits refers to his father, a hirsute brute of a man wearing dentures (at least I hope they're dentures) that look as if they were originally meant for Lon Chaney, who towers over Wayne and who Junior plainly didn't get his looks from.
Although the settlers dismiss the Indians as "savages" most of the conflict is actually between the settlers themselves; wile the most egregious racial stereotype is probably the dreaded El Brendel wandering in and out of the action making dire mother-in-law jokes: Laugh? I thought I'd never start.
Among the many impressive sights the film provides the most impressive is probably of a fresh-faced young John Wayne - apparently recommended to Walsh by John Ford - who demonstrates the grace and ease in front of a camera that ultimately would sustain a forty year film career.
Anyone looking for Tyrone Power be warned the name on the opening credits refers to his father, a hirsute brute of a man wearing dentures (at least I hope they're dentures) that look as if they were originally meant for Lon Chaney, who towers over Wayne and who Junior plainly didn't get his looks from.
Although the settlers dismiss the Indians as "savages" most of the conflict is actually between the settlers themselves; wile the most egregious racial stereotype is probably the dreaded El Brendel wandering in and out of the action making dire mother-in-law jokes: Laugh? I thought I'd never start.