Men Of America (1932)

the audience applauded

A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

I started watching this with low expectations. After all, it was a one hour B programmer from RKO in 1932 with no big stars in it. But, wow, was I wrong.The film starts out showing the past in just a couple of scenes of Smokey Joe Miller (Chic Sale).It shows him shooting it out while riding the Commanche Trail with a herd of cattle in 1887, and later shooting it out against bandits while riding shotgun on a stagecoach in 1899. But those days are behind him now, the west is tamed, and it is 1932. Now Smokey runs a country store in California, surrounded by small farms. His granddaughter, Anne (Dorothy Wilson) is in love with a farmer (Bill Boyd as Jim Parker) who is having a tough go of it. He's a WWI vet and as a result gets certain financial aid for his farm. Smokey Joe knows nothing about Jim, except that he gets all kinds of pamphlets and money from the government, and somewhat resents him for that given his independent past. He wonders if such a fellow can take care of his granddaughter if they marry. Plus Jim does like to have a little fun at Joe's expense, and that doesn't help things.Meanwhile gangsters who broke out of Leavenworth prison - the Cicero gang- have been robbing banks all the way from Kansas to the West. Their latest robbery has netted them 50 1000 dollar bills which they cannot pass. The smaller bills were being carried by a member of the gang shot down during the robbery. So here these desperate men are rich yet poor. Cicero says that this "hick country" is a great place to lay low, but in the meantime they have to eat. So all kinds of things start disappearing from the farms nearby - turkeys, liquor, fruit, vegetables, even silverware and sheets. The farmers gather in the country store and wonder who could be at the bottom of it. Joe thinks it is Jim Parker. After all, they know nothing about him and his farm is not doing well yet.This is bad enough, but soon Jim is implicated in a murder of one of the farmers. Smokey Joe calls the sheriff only to be told that the sheriff is out campaigning on his law and order ticket and cannot be bothered with actual law enforcement until after his campaigning. What follows is a deputy talking like a recording of a campaign call you might get today. Joe hangs up and tells the other men that they cannot look to law enforcement, that they must form a posse and bring in Jim themselves. How does this all turn out? Quite interestingly in a shootout between the gang with their automatic weapons and the men of the town - including Jim - with only their rifles and guns. Cicero also has one more trick up his sleeve - he has managed to kidnap Anne.The film is a precode and has a message that would not be allowed just two years later. In the middle of the Depression ordinary people had stopped counting on government to be of any help -signified by the sheriff - and they had best look to themselves for help. It also had an interesting message about diversity if you look close enough. Smokey was fighting Indians in the previous century, now one is a close friend. The Italian farmer looks at the Midwestern veteran Jim like a son, and enjoys giving him farming tips. Community is what you make of it.Oddly enough, this was only Bill Boyd's second western. In the silent era he had been a romantic leading man, much like John Gilbert, and the coming of sound had not been kind to his career when it revealed his Okie accent. Chic Sale is actually only 47 here. Make-up and his lanky body made him believable as men twenty and thirty years older than his actual age. His own talent made him well received as the good hearted curmudgeon. He was actually only 11 years older than Boyd. Boyd was actually the guy with the REAL gray hair, gray since he was 24.This is certainly an unusual hybrid of a film - gangsters, cowboys, and farmers. But it is very action packed and well acted. I'd highly recommend it.

Don't let local yokels fool you. Even when confronted by the evils of modern gangsters, they can come back and fight until the death. But in the meantime, there's much murder and mayhem as escaped prisoners head to the California desert and steal from the locals while hiding out in an abandoned mine. Mixed with comedy, this pre-code gangster/modern western is an exciting hour long "matinee classic" that shows the power of good over evil and the power of trust and placing your judgment in the right direction. William Boyd is the handsome hero, new to the community, yet having won the locals over with his easy going personality. He is romancing the pretty Dorothy Wilson, the daughter of a grizzled former hero (Charles "Chic" Sale) who likes Boyd but isn't thrilled over their romance. When a beloved patriarch of an Italian immigrant family is brutally murdered, the evidence points to Boyd, but it is only a matter of time before the real villains' identities are revealed and justice takes its place in between the huge rocks of the California desert.The violence is pretty brutal in this exciting drama which will both please and shock the audience. There's a truly horrifying moment when one of the victims of the city gangsters is discovered by their loved ones that might require more than just a couple of Kleenex. It's a violent world out in the middle of nowhere as the old westerns have shown, and in this modern western, the villain isn't some cow-stealing bandit whom everybody secretly knows, but the scourge of civilization that had taken its force with such real life gangsters as Dillinger, Pretty Boy Floyd and Bonnie and Clyde. The villains are obviously violent, but when they start stealing crops, personal belongings and even livestock (two baby goats!), their identities as brutal bullies are exposed. Boyd is an engaging hero, Wilson an appealing ingenue, and Sale a far cry from his usual feisty old men who were more caricature than character.

Good to see charismatic director Ralph Ince as the leader of the bad guys. Ince was unsure of his own performance and asked the movie's top star, William Boyd, to direct his scenes. Boyd did so, but soon realized that he was not cut out to be a director. He never directed a picture again – not even the ones he later produced! The number two star here is Charles "Chic" Sale. I always thought that Sale really was a crotchety old man, but IMDb put me right. Clever make- up! In fact, Sale never was an old man. He died of pneumonia in 1936, aged only 51! In fact, if you look very closely at the still on the cover of Warner Archive's excellent DVD, you can see for yourself. Notice his hands. No veins! No lines! His hair is dyed, but it's far too profuse for an old man. Of course, in the movie itself everything seems just right, and you could never detect that Sale was actually twenty to thirty years younger than he looked! Also in the cast here is the beautiful Dorothy Wilson who was later to marry Lewis R. Foster and retire from movies altogether. "I never wanted to go back. It wasn't a life, it was a death sentence. You worked very hard for long hours for great pay and hung around with people who – like you – were drinking themselves to death!"

An exciting, atypical "modern" western in that automobiles as well as horses are used by the ranchers. Set in 1932, bank robbers are hiding out and laying low after a foolish robbery of $50,000 in $1000 banknotes, which gang leader Cicero knows cannot be spent. With no other money, they resort to stealing food from the local ranchers, but are discovered, leading to a climactic battle. I enjoyed the modern setting, which sets it apart from the usual B-western 1930's format, and the suspense had me biting my fingernails. The screenplay is excellent for this type of movie and the direction, by Ralph Ince, who also plays the villain, moves along at a good pace. William Boyd shows some of his skills that made him a star in the series of Hopalong Cassidy films a few years later, and Charles "Chic" Sales (who provides some of the comedy) and Dorothy Wilson (who provides the love interest) are good in their co-starring roles.