Thunder Trail

Although this is one of a series of B films that Paramount was making out of Zane Grey western novels, it's one of the best of the adaptations that Paramount did. An outlaw gang led by Charles Bickford massacres a small wagon train heading back from the gold fields. All are killed except young Gene Reynolds who was out hunting some game and his little brother Billy Lee who was hidden in a wagon and didn't see who did the crime. Bickford adopts Billy Lee who grows up to be James Craig. Reynolds after seeing the massacre and the man responsible wanders through the night and comes across the campfire of J. Carrol Naish, a Mexican prospector. Naish raises him and he grows up to be Gilbert Roland.

J. Carrol Naish was a remarkable character actor who could play every kind of nationality and adopt every kind of dialect imaginable. He played many a Latino on screen, but he was just about everything else except Irish which is what he really was. His face never became known, but his casting potential was unlimited.

Of course hanging around Naish while growing up the Anglo Gene Reynolds grew up to sound like Gilbert Roland. This in itself was remarkable. Probably Mexicans were the most common western villain in the silent era and that continued on, somewhat lessened when sound came on the scene. Having Latin lovers as heroes of which Gilbert Roland first made his mark lessened the use of Mexican villains to a large degree. But a Latino hero in a western film was certainly unusual in 1937. And of course Gilbert Roland played the greatest Latino western hero of all in some Cisco Kid films in the following decade.

Roland was always a particular favorite of mine. In every kind of part he did over a long career he always played it with a twinkle in the eye that was infectious. You can't help, but like the guy even when he's a villain which occasionally he was.

He's the reason I'm glad this particular film has been preserved on VHS.