This is the first sound version and the only precode film version of "Three Godfathers", and it has a coarseness and therefore redemptive power that the later films just lack in spite of the primitive nature of the early sound technology. Four hardened partners in crime meet up in the old west desert town of New Jerusalem shortly before Christmas to rob a bank. Bob Sangster (Charles Bickford) has written for the other three outlaws to join him since he has the town's only lawman and the bank pegged as a soft touch. Before the robbery Bob gets two saloon girls involved in a cat fight over him just for the fun of it. While at the bank, one outlaw keeps putting his leg up searching for the boot rail while leaning across the counter, insinuating that he is only used to leaning on bars in saloons, and after one of the tellers draws his gun and is shot dead, two of the outlaws fight over whether the shot was through the heart or not. One robber doesn't make it out of town - he's shot by one of the townspeople. Bob returns and rescues one of the gold sacks, not his com-padre. Later, when the surviving trio spots a lone covered wagon with an ill woman inside the three have a bit of an argument in what amounts to who is going to rape her.
All of this is just to illustrate that these guys seem to have no redeeming value whatsoever - they are savages in a savage land. But when they discover the lone woman is ill because she is about to give birth, their demeanor changes completely, and they become the child's guardian promising to return him to civilization. They do have some of their own problems themselves - their horses have stampeded in a sandstorm, and the place they hoped to refill their canteens is now dry as a bone. Thus they can go back to New Jerusalem and a noose and save the child - and even then it's questionable whether or not they have the water to make it, or they can stay in the desert where they all will perish.
Now for 1929, this is a good little Western with much more gritty reality and less unnecessary sentimentality than its two successors, and very natural performances and dialogue considering its early sound pedigree, but I guess what I remember this one for is Charles Bickford's description of it in his autobiography. He gives a description of director William Wyler as a product of nepotism run rampant at Universal and "an inarticulate nose-picking golem" and says that the film would have been a disaster if not rewritten by himself, Charles Bickford, and that he was stuck with a cast of silent screen actors that he had to teach to act before the camera in a situation that required dialogue.
Bickford does give a great performance, and the film has become a bit of a minor Christmas classic among classic film buffs, and I've always wondered about the veracity of Bickford's description of the set and why Wyler didn't sue since he was still alive and well when Bickford's book was written. Watch this rare old film and see what you think.
All of this is just to illustrate that these guys seem to have no redeeming value whatsoever - they are savages in a savage land. But when they discover the lone woman is ill because she is about to give birth, their demeanor changes completely, and they become the child's guardian promising to return him to civilization. They do have some of their own problems themselves - their horses have stampeded in a sandstorm, and the place they hoped to refill their canteens is now dry as a bone. Thus they can go back to New Jerusalem and a noose and save the child - and even then it's questionable whether or not they have the water to make it, or they can stay in the desert where they all will perish.
Now for 1929, this is a good little Western with much more gritty reality and less unnecessary sentimentality than its two successors, and very natural performances and dialogue considering its early sound pedigree, but I guess what I remember this one for is Charles Bickford's description of it in his autobiography. He gives a description of director William Wyler as a product of nepotism run rampant at Universal and "an inarticulate nose-picking golem" and says that the film would have been a disaster if not rewritten by himself, Charles Bickford, and that he was stuck with a cast of silent screen actors that he had to teach to act before the camera in a situation that required dialogue.
Bickford does give a great performance, and the film has become a bit of a minor Christmas classic among classic film buffs, and I've always wondered about the veracity of Bickford's description of the set and why Wyler didn't sue since he was still alive and well when Bickford's book was written. Watch this rare old film and see what you think.