Buffalo Stampede (originally released as The Thundering Herd, Paramount Pictures. 1933. Featuring Randolph Scott, Judith Allen, Buster Crabbe, Noah Beery, Raymond Hatton, Harry Carey, Blanche Friderici, and Barton MacLane. Directed by Henry Hathaway. Written by Jack Cunningham and Mary Flannery, based in Zane Grey's 1925 novel The Thundering Herd.
This better than average B western opens with the lines "In the fall of 1874 there occurred pne of those wild rushes for sudden wealth that have characterized the American West. This time it was the lure of buffalo hides, for which a rich commercial market had been developed. The White Man again invaded Indian territory and ruthlessly slaughtered the buffalo herds of the Red Man. Outfitting and shipping depots sprang up at strategic points. Of theses, the most remote -- deep in the buffalo country -- was Sprague's trading post.. Zane Grey"
Clark Sprague (Harry Carey) runs a bufflo hunting group, while the unsrupulous Randall Jett (Noah Beery) runs another. Jett's outfit gets most of its hides through unchecked thievery and wholesale slaughter of both Whites and Indians. While Jett is despicable, bis wife Jane (Blanche Friderici) is even worse. Their stepdaughter is the lovely Milly Fayre (Judith Allen), who loves Tom Doan (Randolph Scott). Jett has incestuous designs on Milly (I said he was despicable, didn't I?). Doan hopes to rescue Milly from Jett, and joins Sprague's outfit. He is eventually able to hook up with Milly and they plan to run away that evening, but Jett comes across the pair, shoots Doan and beats the ___ out of him. Neraly dead, it takes months for Doan to recuperate before he can try to rescue Milly. In the meantime, Sprague's outfit, with Doan, face a terrifying buffalo stampede and an Indian attack.
Filmed in Yellowstone National Park, the film uses real-life buffalo along with older movie clips of a buffalo stampede. Hathaway uses his camera to great advantage while capturing action scenes. Great care wa used in detailing western life and the realities of buffalo hunting parties and wagon trains. All in all, a very impressive movie.
This had Randolph Scott early in his career, sporting a pencil thin mustache (perhaps the only time he did). Paramount evidently added third-billed Buster Crabbe to the cast merely for box office appeal -- Crabbe's character, a stage coach driver, appeared briefly in the beginning of the film and was never seen again. The cast contained some of the more popular western stars of the day, but the most outstanding performance was that of Blanche Friderici as Jane Jett, an absolutely horrid character.
The film was retitled Buffalo Stampede for a 1950 re-release. That is the version linked below.
Enjoy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRUOW8aBVKU
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