Above: Johnny Mack Brown asks Jack C. Smith a few questions in THE OREGON TRAIL (Universal, 1939).

THE OREGON TRAIL

Universal, 15 Chapters, 1939. Starring John Mack Brown, Louise Stanley, Fuzzy Knight, Bill Cody Jr., James Blaine, Jack C. Smith, Edward LeSaint, Charles Stevens.

THE OREGON TRAIL was Johnny Mack Brown's final serial before moving on to become a top B-western star, and it's a worthy farewell for a great serial hero, as well as a fine successor to RUSTLERS OF RED DOG, WILD WEST DAYS, and FLAMING FRONTIERS. Universal once again show that they have no consistent equal in the Westerns department, at least when it comes to putting together a straight, rugged sagebrush saga with no gimmicks needed or added.

OREGON TRAIL begins with Jeff Scott, famous scout (Johnny Mack Brown, naturally), and his sidekick Deadwood (Fuzzy Knight) being enlisted by the US Cavalry to investigate the source of the Indian attacks and other disasters that have been befalling Oregon-bound wagon trains. As Jeff and Deadwood set out on their mission, the scene changes to one of the aforementioned wagon trains. Its wagon master, Jack C. Smith as Bull Bragg, is advising the wagon leader, John Mason (Edward LeSaint) to take the wagons across a dangerous river. Clark (Karl Hackett), traveling West with his young son Jimmy (Bill Cody Jr.) warns against the crossing, but Mason decides to listen to Bragg and orders the wagons across. This is a bad move, since Bragg just happens to be in the pay of trader Sam Morgan (James Blaine), a fur mogul who is bent on keeping out the settlers and preserving his unscrupulous fur trading arrangements with the Indians. As Bragg intended, several wagons overturn in the rapid river, but Jeff and Deadwood arrive in time to save Mason, his daughter Margaret (Louise Stanley) and most of the others from drowning. The only one killed is Clark, to the delight of Bragg and his buddy Breed (Charles Stevens), who figure they have lost their only antagonist among the pioneers. They've figured wrong, though, as Jeff quickly catches on to Bragg's true motives and kicks him out of the train. Losing his inside man doesn't deter Morgan, however, and with the help of Bragg, Breed, and Breed's Indian cronies, he harasses the pioneers' trek to Oregon and the town of Paradise Valley. Jeff and Deadwood battle Morgan's schemes all the way and eventually succeed in discovering the man behind all the wagon train's troubles.

THE OREGON TRAIL delivers all the thrills I've come to expect from a Universal western by this time, with a few surprises thrown in. Of course, the number one thing you expect in a Universal western from this period is a great heroic performance from John Mack Brown, and Johnny doesn't disappoint. Rugged, determined, and good-natured as ever, Johnny commands center stage throughout, giving the audience a truly likeable hero to root for. I won't repeat all I've said of Brown in my reviews of his other serials; suffice it to say that he's in top form. It's no wonder that Universal decided to make him their leading B-western hero in view of his great body of cliffhanger work at their studio. Fuzzy Knight, who subsequently teamed with Brown in his B-westerns, is a memorable sidekick, and, surprisingly, a very competent one. His character of Deadwood is more like one of Raymond Hatton's tough, crafty curmudgeons than Fuzzy's customary brain-dead stumblebums. Knight works well with Brown, and handles his unusual part perfectly, saving Johnny's life and outsmarting Indians, all the while grumping about "gettin' this mission over with and gettin' back to trapping." While not equal to Johnny--who could be?--Fuzzy is a highly reliable fellow, and you feel the bad guys have really struck a tough pair in these two gentlemen.

Heroine Louise Stanley, a very good actress who did many B-westerns later on, is highly attractive and charming, as well as more than a bit impudent. This trait manifests itself especially in her friendly teasing of Bill Cody Jr., a teasing he is fully capable of returning--and does so more than once. Young Cody is excellent, too, combining inexperience with helpfulness, independence, and humor. Though their characters are not brother and sister, they seem much more genuinely fond of each other than many supposed serial brother/sister pairs, stumbling into many predicaments together and always supporting Johnny Mack unswervingly. The same cannot be said of Edward LeSaint, who comes off as extremely pompous and gullible, mainly because of his trust in Bull Bragg and his continual doubt of Brown's motives. LeSaint does help Brown to outsmart James Blaine at the very end, partly making up for his insufferable attitude, but he still comes off as one of the more unlikable "heroine's fathers", and we don't really worry about him like we worry for the other cast members. I don't think his attitude is due to poor scripting--the screenwriters apparently decided to write the character that way for a change of pace.

It's nice to see the unctuous James Blaine get a chance to play the unchallenged chief villain for once and not be superseded by a cohort. He keeps on top of all the villainous doings, fools the good guys as to his true intentions (until the last chapter) and brilliantly (and hilariously) outwits Bull Bragg when the latter tries to doublecross him. Like Knight, Blaine handles his atypical part with great aplomb. Jack C. Smith, as Bull Bragg, is delightful as one of the thickest henchmen in serials, always blustering and grumbling at real or imagined grievances from Morgan and clumsily trying to cheat his leader of spoil. Smith's performance lives up to the character's unusually colorful moniker, and leaves the audience hesitating between feeling disgust at Bragg's villainy or amusement at his blundering. It's too bad we didn't see more of Smith or Blaine in other films.

The great Charles Stevens plays his trademark half-breed henchman character, delightedly manipulating the Indians, swaggering about in the presence of his fellow henchmen, and eagerly joining with Bragg in his plots against Morgan, only to flatten out into a wretched little toady in the presence of his boss. Since his character in OREGON TRAIL shares the name, outfit, and backstabbing personality of his character in FLAMING FRONTIERS, it's amusing to regard them as one and the same character. Apparently Breed escaped the incompetent sheriff (Horace Murphy) after the end of FRONTIERS, and headed north to Oregon and joined up with Morgan's gang. Charles King, Colin Kenny, and especially Forrest Taylor all do well as other Morgan henchmen, and Tom London appears very briefly as a minor thug.

Jim Toney, as trapper Idaho Ike, brightens up the serial's middle chapters thanks to his friendly bickering with Fuzzy Knight. Their first meeting is a memorable scene, as is the part where Toney promises to guide a discouraged wagon train back East. Knight predicts all the dire consequences that will result from Toney's leadership, then comments to Brown after Toney leaves: "He'll get 'em through--best scout in the whole West." It's a bit of a disappointment when Ike drops out of the serial midway; it would have been fun to see more of him. Charles Murphy, as a gabby, feisty old pioneer named Tompkins, also adds some chuckles to the proceedings. Silent serial heroine Helen Gibson appears briefly as another pioneer, and Lane Chandler pops up as a cavalryman. Dick Botiller is a vicious renegade Indian named Yellow Knife, while Iron Eyes Cody plays a friendly chief named Crowfoot.

Old reliables Kenneth Harlan and Warner Richmond appear briefly in the first chapter, as Generals Terry and Sherman, respectively. Richmond’s character, however, comes off as unexpectedly befuddled and comic during the sequence where Terry is explaining Brown and Knight's mission--perhaps the screenwriters were of Confederate sympathies. Karl Hackett has a surprisingly heroic role as Billy Cody's ill-fated father, but even stranger is the casting of Roy Barcroft as Colonel Custer, who sends the heroes on their mission and pops in periodically with his cavalry to save the day when the good guys are menaced by overwhelming numbers. Barcroft was great in whatever role he played, though, and he brings as much conviction to his Custer as he did to Captain Mephisto and the Purple Monster. A young Tom Steele doubles Brown and, reputedly, plays a small role, but I couldn't spot him.

Even though OREGON TRAIL was preceded by three serials with the same hero in the same outfit, little stock from the earlier releases is used, if you don't count Universal's standard silent-stock-footage Indians. The one cliffhanger that centers around stock becomes a "cheat" resolution, apparently because someone realized the take-out footage from the old serial was incompatible with the new plot; other than that, the chapter endings are very good, albeit with some of the traditional "lived through it" resolutions. The action comes fast and furious, thanks to Tom Steele and to directors Ford Beebe and Saul Goodkind. Basil Dickey and George Plympton, two of the busiest serial screenwriters in the business, keep the plotline moving; one thing I particuarly appreciated was the fact that there was a sense of progression in the wagon train's trek--it didn't get stuck in one place for the entire serial, but kept going and provided us with several changes of scene. Speaking of scenery, there's some darned pretty scenery in OREGON TRAIL, particularly along the river in two different canoe sequences. Though not "pretty", the cave hideout that figures in the plot for a while is still extremely picturesque.

The only bad thing about OREGON TRAIL is, in fact, knowing that it's Brown's last serial. Oh well, we can always re-watch it and its predecessors over again--and again, and again, and again.