Blazing Barriers (1937)

A Masterpiece!

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

Nicely crafted programmer. No one expects a Ben Hur from the likes of poverty row Monogram. Nonetheless, this 60-minute production is well-paced, engagingly acted, and shrewdly mounted within limits. In short, results again show the vibrancy of Hollywood's B-movie era.Younger folks may not know about the CCC, Civilian Conservation Corps. It was one of the 1930's New Deal programs meant to alleviate effects of the Great Depression. The government funded Corps employed jobless young men to tend parts of America's great natural forests. Here, city boy delinquents Coghlan and Arnold join up to escape the law. Coghlan amounts to a tough punk on his way to prison unless he reforms. Arnold is his slow-thinking buddy. The movie's main part dramatizes the changes brought upon the toughie by his experience as a Corps member. Of course, winsome sweetie McKinney also helps, (I really like their first meet-up). Anyway, we get an idea of the Corps' paramilitary structure, which makes sense given tough conditions on the outside.Watch for Gunsmoke's Doc Adams (Milburn Stone) in a featured part early in his career. Then too, there's a colorful turn from Post as a ham actor, and from whoever the guy is playing the murderous hayseed, a really thankless role. However, I'm still wondering about tough street kids at movie's beginning who stroll the streets in suits and ties, no less. Maybe they're applying to Harvard or Yale. Such costuming seems odd to say the least. I guess the talent show that sort of drops in was meant to show the Corps' lighter side.Still and all, it's a lively little flick, along with an informative peek into a difficult period gone by.

Frank Coghlan Jr (Tommy McGrath), Edward Arnold (Fats Moody), Florine McKinney (Joan Martin), Irene Franklin (Fleurette), Guy Bates Post (Reginald), Herbert Corthell (Sheriff Martin), Milburn Stone (Joe Waters), Addison Randall (Arthur Forsythe), and Dick Hogan, Dennis O'Keefe, Nestor Paiva, Mary Hayes, Frank Bishell, A. Taylor, C. Carpenter.Director. AUBREY SCOTTO. Original screenplay: Edwin C. Parsons. Additional dialogue: Lee Freeman. Photography: Paul Ivano. Film editor: Russell Schoengarth. Music: Charles K. Duval. Songs by Charles K. Duval (music) and Bernie Grossman (lyrics). Sound recording: Hal Bambaugh. Associate producer: Ken Goldsmith. Executive producer: Scott B. Dunlap.Copyright 14 July 1937 by Monogram Pictures Corp. New York opening at the Central on a double bill with Million-Dollar Racket: 10 November 1937. U.S. release: 4 July 1937. No British or Australian theatrical release. 8 reels. 65 minutes.SYNOPSIS: Love is on the agenda in a Civilian Conservation Camp.NOTES: Produced with the co-operation of the U.S. Civilian Conservation Forest Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture.COMMENT: Produced on a larger budget than usual, with surprisingly inventive direction by Aubrey Scotto (of all people!), this is quite an acceptable Monogram "B" feature. The cast is uniformly attractive, and the on-location photography most creditable.Unfortunately, the climax of the story itself is not well-judged, though it is certainly unusual for a Monogram entry not to have a completely happy fade-out.

BLAZING BARRIERS is a cheap outdoors adventure made by Monogram in 1937. Most of the film seems to have been shot in just a couple of locations and most of the supporting cast are interchangeable, just there in numbers to make the film look bigger than it is.The protagonists are a couple of young goons by the name of Tommy and Fats. They're failed criminals who decide to escape the long arm of the law by joining something called the Civilian Conservation Corps, an outdoor outfit involved in tree logging and other forestry enterprises.This being a somewhat moralistic story, the main characters soon change for the better, but their lives are made more complex by the arrival of an even more sinister character with destruction in mind. BLAZING BARRIERS is a predictable little effort that doesn't ring true for a second, but at least there's plenty of incident to take your mind off the cheapness of it all.