Todd’s Serial Blog

Universal must really like author Peter B. Kyne’s western stories, especially The Tie That Binds, as it was adapted twice for serials, first as Heroes of the West (1932) starring Onslow Stevens, and again as the Johnny Mack Brown vehicle Flaming Frontiers (1938). Kyne also had another story adapted for Buck Jones, Gordon of Ghost City (1933).

Flaming Frontiers starts out in the usual way, with Johnny Mack Brown riding puposefully across the screen. He is playing Tex Houston, famed Indian fighter, on his way to Plainsville on a mission for his good friend Tom Grant (Ralph Bowman). Seems a while back Tom’s father Andy (Eddie Waller) was accused of stealing three thousand dollars from business man and wagon train tycoon Bart Eaton (James Blaine). Tom left town, leaving a note with a false confession to the crime. He has discovered a goldmine outside of the town of Gold Creek and has sent Tex back to Plainsville with  a bag of gold to settle the debt and a letter for his father and sister Mary (Eleanor Hansen).

Tex comes upon an attacked wagon train, the only survivor being a friendly dog.   Also spotting the tragedy is Tex’s good friend Buffalo Bill Cody (John Rutherford).  As the two men discuss the attack and Tex invites Bill to come with him to Planisville.  Bill begs off, having government business to attend to for the Army, but says he’s sure he’ll see Tex around.

A little later Tex spots a Pony Express rider being chased by some Indians. Tex and the dog, who has been following Tex, fight off the Indians. After the battle Tex says to the dog, “You came to help right certain…say, that’s a good name for you, Certain.”

The Pony Express rider dies from his wounds and Tex takes it upon himself to deliver the mailbags to Plainsville. While at the Wells Fargo office, Tex naively talks about the gold and letter he has for Andy Grant. Eaton overhears this and steals them from Tex’s saddlebag. The time limit for Grant to pay back the money is up and Eaton is hoping to force Mary to become his wife or else he’ll have Grant thrown in jail.  Hearing now about Tom’s gold mine, he decides to try and steal that as well.

Tex goes over to Eaton’s store, where he is immediately smitten by Mary, and she seems to be likewise. He explains about Tom’s letter and the gold, but when he can’t produce either Eaton insults Tex and goads the man into hitting him. Tex is thrown in jail for assault. Eaton then demands that Mary make her decision, either marry him or her father goes to jail. Mary says she will give him her decision in the morning.

The next morning Eaton discovers that Mary has left with the wagon train headed for Gold Creek. But Eaton isn’t so easily thwarted. Several of the men working on the wagon train actually work for him, he has Grant thrown in jail and then heads after the wagon train.

Grant tells all this to Tex as they are sitting in their cell. Tex decides to bust out of jail. Certain had sneaked into the jail has earlier and is hiding under a desk to be close to Tex. When the Sheriff goes on his patrol, Certain grabs the keys to the cell and takes them to Tex. Once free they grab horses and head for the wagon train.

Tex spots smoke signals ordering an Indian attack. they race for the wagon train and warn of the attack. Eaton is quick to scoff at Tex’s warning, but the trial boss recognizes Tex as the famed Indian fighter and has the wagons run for the river in an attempt to get away from the Indians.

The Indians converge of the wagon train and Mary’s wagon gets boarded. Tex jumps aboard and throws off the Braves. The wagon is now out of control and falls into the river, overturning on top of Tex and Mary, who sink out of sight….

I have never been a big fan of Universal’s western serials, a company that emphasized plot over action in all of their serials seemed to do even more so with their western ones.  And this serial has a plot heavy story.  You have marauding Indians, two different sets of outlaws vying for the gold mine who bounce back and forth between being allies and competitors, a trumped up murder charge, and several different jail breaks.

The early chapters are slow moving and repetitive.  The first four kind of meander around as we follow the wagon train and Brown fights off yet another Indian attack while Blaine and his henchmen plot to kill both him and Eddie Waller.  Things start to perk up in Chapter Five when Charles Middleton is introduced as saloon owner/ crime boss of Gold Creek.  Then when the rest of the wagon train arrives the pace picks up considerably as we head for the final episodes.

The resolution of the final episode has an odd and ultimately unsatisfying twist.  Instead of the usual action of the hero and his friends bringing about the end of all the bad guys, the villains themselves bring about each other’s demise.  Having finally gotten fed up with each other’s double crossing schemes, Blaine and Middleton square off in a hectic shoot out, while Brown is out of town heading off yet another Indian attack and rescuing Hansen.

The serial also features a personally annoying tendency among western serials of inserting famous historical figures who end up being one of the hero’s sidekicks.  Here it’s Buffalo Bill, who pops up every two of three chapters to help Brown out of a tough spot before disappearing just as quickly on yet another unspecified bit of intrigue for the Army.  I don’t mind it so much when the figure is the title character, like in Fighting With Kit Carson (1933) or Riding With Buffalo Bill (1954), or when they’re used for historical flavor, like General Custer in The Last Frontier (1932) or Benito Juarez in Zorro’s Fighting Legion (1939).  But I had trouble sitting through something like The Painted Stallion (1937) as first the hero semi-adopts a preteen Kit Carson, then Jim Bowie joins their wagon train, only to have Davy Crockett show up down the road too.  And it is like that for me with this film, I got sick of Buffalo Bill’s constant insertion into the story.

The action is all pretty decent with lots of hard riding horseback chases, furious fist fights in saloons, and numerous shootouts.  The silent footage used for the massive Indian attacks gets old fast as it seems to be the same footage used over and over again.  Same goes for the buffalo stampedes that pop up on a few occasions.

This was the first film I had ever seen of Johnny Mack Brown, hearing him speak for the first time is a little off putting.  Most western heroes have these strong, forceful voices, like Buck Jones and John Wayne.  So it was kind of disappointing to hear Brown’s soft and quiet Southern drawl for the first time.   But he has a strong and forceful personality, augmented by a steady, easygoing exterior that compliment each other and his voice grows on you over time, making you wish all western heroes could be this tough and laid back at the same time.  He is in top form here as he talks tough to the bad guys, makes his contempt of Blaine clear from their first meeting and shyly romances Hansen, who he has fallen in love with just from hearing here brother talk about her.  It’s easy to see why he was one of the most popular western stars of the Golden Age.

Hansen plays the kind of heroine I like, plucky from the get go.  She is not some wilting flower who constantly needs taken care of.  When Brown is captured by Indians in Chapter Two and no one will go rescue him, she goes herself.  When she and Brown are are trapped in a shack by Indians in Chapter Three, she’s the first to knock out a pane of glass and start shooting.  When the bandits threaten her in Chapter Six with the proverbial fate worse than death if her brother doesn’t quick deed the mine over to them, she all but spits in their eyes and tells them to do their worst.  No wonder everyone wanted her, heck I wanted to marry her myself after a few episodes.

James Blaine has a real distinction among serial villains.  I so hated his character that it colored me against the actual man himself.  Not a bad feat of acting.  What it comes down to for me is I like a villain you can respect.  I generally prefer a strong villain who is not afraid of mixing it up with the hero, like Roy Barcroft in Don Daredevil Rides Again (1951). I  also don’t mind if the villain is a little cowardly, like James Craven in White Eagle (1941), but Blaine’s Bart Eaton takes the cake. The turning point for me is the cliffhanger of Chapter Four.  He and Hansen get caught in a buffalo stampede and he practically trips her horse as he rides away, leaving her to her fate.  After it’s all over and Brown has pulled off another miraculous rescue, Blaine saunters back in and says his saddle cinch broke otherwise he would have been there for her.  Just thinking about the sequence gets me steamed up.  If I’d been there I would have just shot him and that would have been the end of the film.

Much more my speed is  Charles Middleton’s Ace Daggett (Isn’t that just about the perfect name for a western villain?).  He has a great introduction to the film.  Having been talked about by Blaine for a few chapters before he sends his henchmen on ahead of the train to his saloon, we finally meet him sitting in his office puffing contentedly on a cigar while Blaine henchman William Royce explains  all about the mine.  Middleton is amused and contemptuous of Royce at the same time.  He seems to start helping Blaine more out of boredom than any real desire to get richer, almost as if he is curious just to see what will happen.  This changes about six episodes later when his personal fortune is wiped out in a flood and he starts plotting some serious machinations, all they while never dropping his public personae of a gregarious, back slapping friend of the heroes.  It’s a performance Noah Berry, Sr. would have been proud of and makes one wish the serial would have ended with Middleton having a showdown against Brown, like he had had with Tom Mix in the Miracle Rider (1935).

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