FIGHTING CARAVANS (1931) ¢ ¢ 1/2
D: Otto Brower
Gary Cooper, Lily Damita, Ernest Torrance,
Tully Marshall, Fred Kohler, Eugene Pallette
Young Gary Cooper, his gunbelt slung low on his hip, plays a frontier scout escorting a wagon train across rivers, plains, deserts and mountains to Sacramento. There are some Indians, too. An unremarkable western with a little too much footage devoted to a couple of alleged comic-relief characters played by Ernest Torrance and Tully Marshall. Except for a few nice montage sequences, Cooper's aw-shucks presence is the only draw. The climactic battle, in which the settlers circle the wagons and Torrance and Marshall keep score as they pick off Indians like targets in a shooting gallery, would probably not be considered politically correct today. That's just a guess.
