HARRY WOODS
May 5th, 1889 -- December 28th, 1968

Above: Harry Woods, one of the meanest, roughest, toughest bad guys in the West.

Tall and brawny, with a swaggering walk, a sneering smile, and a rough, bullying voice, Harry Woods was one of the greatest badmen to stalk across the Western screen. It would impossible to record all the Westerns, A and B, that Woods appeared in, from the inception of his career in 1923 to his retirement in 1956. Along the way, the gruff and nasty heavy also appeared in major heavy roles in four serials, as well as playing one atypical good guy role in another. Roy Barcroft himself, the greatest of the serial villains, always said "everything I know about being a bad guy I learned from Harry Woods."

Woods was from Cleveland, Ohio, and started out as a millinery salesman, of all things. He got interested in acting and, like a lot of other serial actors, started off his performing career on the stage. His family got to Hollywood in the 1920's, and made his first movie, DON QUICKSHOT OF THE RIO GRANDE, a Western with Jack Hoxie, in 1923. He was typed as a heavy almost immediately, and played opposite many of the great silent cowboys, including Buck Jones, Tom Tyler, and Fred Thomson, as well as silent serial stars such as Pearl White. One of his first sound roles was as Alky Briggs, a gangster who crossed paths with the Marx Brothers in their hilarious film MONKEY BUSINESS. I suspect that it was the jungle film DEVIL TIGER, made in 1934, that slightly loosened Woods' Hollywood standing; he was obliged to leave America for nearly two years to film on location, and, by the time he got back, he had been "forgotten" by the big studios to the extent that he wound up making his first serial appearance as the head villain in RUSTLERS OF RED DOG (Universal, 1935). It was certainly no comedown, though, in terms of script and acting. RUSTLERS, made with a respectable budget and an excellent cast, was far above the average for a serial, as especially evidenced by the additional depth given the character of the hero, Jack Woods (Johnny Mack Brown) and the villain Rocky (Harry). The two antagonists built up a grudging respect for each other throughout the serial, but, at the end, a showdown between them was inevitable. Harry's role in RUSTLERS was a lot more sympathetic than any of his other later parts; while completely unprincipled, Rocky still had a sense of fair play and a devotion to his men seldom seen in other serial heavies. It was a great debut into the serial world for Harry.

Above: Edmund Cobb (far left), Fredric McKay (center), Harry Woods (second from right) and an unidentified and very short henchman confer in RUSTLERS OF RED DOG (Universal, 1935).

Woods' next serial was that atypical good guy part mentioned earlier--the part of Borno, native sidekick to Tarzan-type hero Jan of the Jungle (Noah Beery Jr.) in CALL OF THE SAVAGE (Universal, 1935). Harry was actually quite good in the part, too; although I doubt any kid in the theaters at the time of the serial's release felt that Beery could trust his "friend" one inch, in view of Woods' "previous record." Harry could almost be called a father figure in CALL, not only to Jan but to the heroine, Mona (Dorothy Short), a (unknown to herself) long lost heir to the kingdom of Mu, from which Borno had been banished for refusing to support a usurper (John Davidson).

Above: Noah Beery Jr. (right) rescues his pal Harry Woods from a python in CALL OF THE SAVAGE (Universal, 1935).

Woods' next serial role was a return to more familiar ground. As Crawford, a corrupt, wealthy rancher in ADVENTURES OF REX AND RINTY (Mascot, 1935), he purchased a magnificent horse (Rex, King of the Wild Horses) that had been stolen from the natives of the island of Sujan. Naturally, Harry was aware that Rex was a "hot" horse, but he didn't let his conscience bother him on that point. He attempted to train Rex, who had been worshipped as a god by the Sujanese, as a polo pony, but the horse escaped from the brutal Woods and joined up with dog Rinty (Rin Tin Tin Jr.) and human hero Frank Bradley (Kane Richmond). Richmond and the dog did their best to return Rex to his home, but they were pursued by the crooked Crawford and his gang of henchmen. Woods was so mean in this serial, that, at one point, he even tried to trick the natives into burning Rex as a sacrifice!

Above: Crawford (Harry Woods, wearing polo helmet and seated in car) confers with Wheeler Oakman (dark suit) while a couple of Woods' henchmen hang about in the background. Kane Richmond and leading lady Norma Taylor are shown in the bottom right hand inset. Across from them is Rin Tin Tin Jr.

Harry was back to Universal for another shot at Western villainy in THE PHANTOM RIDER (Universal, 1936). This time he was Harvey Delaney, an outwardly charming and friendly rancher, and supreme leader of a group of badmen who were trying to drive heroine Mary Grayson (Marla Shelton) off her land. Harry encountered opposition from an old adversary, Buck Jones, whom he had battled many times in silent Westerns. Jones donned the guise of the Phantom Rider to wreak justice on Woods and his lackeys, and defeated Harry's land-grabbing ambitions.

Above: In this scene from THE PHANTOM RIDER (Universal, 1936). Marla Shelton, Diana Gibson, and Harry Woods are threatened by a couple of outlaws; the girls are unaware that both men are secretly Harry’s henchmen.

Woods' serials had by now restored his Hollywood status as a familiar villain, and he embarked on a long spate of heavy roles in B-westerns and other films before returning to cliffhangers for one more boss heavy role: the tyrannical frontier badman King Carter in the exciting, action-packed WINNERS OF THE WEST (Universal, 1940). Commanding whole gangs of renegade Indians and outlaws and owning a posh saloon as well as his own private hacienda, Carter's criminal empire was threatened when construction began on a railroad that would bring settlers to his domain. Woods did his best, with the help of his henchmen Charles Stevens and Trevor Bardette, to stop John Hartford (Edward Keane) from putting the railroad through, but two-fisted hero Jeff Ramsay (Dick Foran) put a stop to Woods' sabotage attempts and brought the frontier despot to justice following a mammoth last-chapter brawl. While Harry's character of Carter was mainly despicable, he did display some flashes of conscience when he showed reluctance to harm heroine Anne Nagel after she saved his life. Thus reminiscent of both his first serial role and his subsequent ones, the part of King Carter was a worthy farewell to serial villainy for Woods as well as being an excellent part in its own right.

Above: King Carter (Harry Woods) chats with his saloon girl cohort Vyola Vonn in WINNERS OF THE WEST (Universal, 1940).

Above: Harry Woods and Charles Stevens (second from right) plot with a pair of Indians in WINNERS OF THE WEST (Universal, 1940).

While King Carter was Woods' last great serial role, he did play two other parts in serials, both insignificant roles unworthy of his talent. In Columbia's 1940 cliffhanger DEADWOOD DICK he was a minor henchman named Cochero, and in Republic's 1943 serial THE MASKED MARVEL, he was an unnamed cohort of action heavy Anthony Warde, who impersonated a professor to deceive the good guys but spelled the professor's name wrong on a receipt, thus arousing suspicion and bringing on a fight that culminated in Harry's demise. It's a credit to Woods that he commanded attention in each of these brief, small roles.

Anthony Warde (far left) and Harry Woods (second from left) have the drop on Rod Bacon and Bill Healey (far right) in THE MASKED MARVEL (Republic, 1943).

Woods continued to ply his trade in Westerns and non-Westerns throughout the forties and into the fifties, landing some particularly juicy heavy roles in Tim Holt Westerns such as THUNDER MOUNTAIN, WILD HORSE MESA, and WESTERN HERITAGE. His last movie role was in THE TEN COMMANDMENTS in 1956. The great heavy, who had brought menace and villainy to so many movies, passed away in 1968.

But the legacy of Harry Woods remains strong. Just as Roy Barcroft always said, Harry was the Western bad guy by whom all others must be judged. And I doubt that there ever was a single Western heavy on the screen that was not in some part influenced by the work of this giant among villains.

Above: Harry, as King Carter in WINNERS OF THE WEST (Universal, 1940) is confronted by Dick Foran in the Silver Dollar saloon.