Tumbleweeds (1925)

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  • TUMBLEWEEDS


    DIRECTED BY KING BAGGOT
    WILLIAM S. HART PRODUCTIONS
    UNITED ARTISTS



    INFORMATION FROM IMDb


    Plot Summary
    The government will grant a fringe of terrain for the settlers
    who want to live and work there.
    The starting sign will be a gunshot which will iniciate
    the run for the best fields and claims.
    Written by Volker Boehm


    Cast
    William S. Hart ... Don Carver (as Wm. S. Hart)
    Barbara Bedford ... Molly Lassiter
    Lucien Littlefield ... Kentucky Rose
    J. Gordon Russell ... Noll Lassiter
    Richard Neill ... Bill Freel (as Richard R. Niell)
    Jack Murphy ... Bart Lassiter
    James Gordon ... Joe Hinman
    George F. Marion ... Old Man (as George Marion)
    Gertrude Claire ... Old Woman
    Lillian Leighton ... Widow Riley
    Taylor N. Duncan ... Cavalry Major (as Ted Duncan)
    and many more...


    Directed
    King Baggot ... (as King Baggott)
    William S. Hart ... (uncredited)


    Writing Credits
    Hal G. Evarts ... (story)
    C. Gardner Sullivan ... (adaptation)


    Produced
    William S. Hart ... producer


    Music
    James C. Bradford ... (1939)
    William P. Perry ... (as William Perry) (1975)
    Artur Guttmann ... (1939) (uncredited)


    Cinematography
    Joseph H. August


    Trivia
    Ironically, tumbleweeds - the plant this movie is named after -
    are not native to Texas; they come from Russia.


    At about 1:07, just after the locked-up "Sooners" rush Dan Carver
    who is cutting through a rail, the scene shifts to a team of horses pulling a wagon.
    The right "off" wheeler horse can be seen to go lame but continue running with a noticeable limp.


    This film was first telecast on New York City's pioneer television station
    WNBT Thursday 17 July 1941.
    It is one of over 200 titles in the list of independent feature films
    made available for television presentation by Advance Television Pictures
    announced in Motion Picture Herald 4 April 1942.
    At this time, television broadcasting was in its infancy,
    almost totally curtailed by the advent of World War II,
    and would not continue to develop until 1945-1946.


    Memorable Quote
    Don Carver: Boys, it's the last of the West.


    Filming Locations
    Santa Clarita, California, USA


    Watch this Clip


    [extendedmedia][extendedmedia=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fy5lbpzsOxs,fa-youtube-square][/extendedmedia]

    Best Wishes
    Keith
    London- England

    Edited 3 times, last by ethanedwards ().

  • Tumbleweeds is a 1925 American Western film starring and produced by William S. Hart.
    It depicts the Cherokee Strip land rush of 1893.
    The film is said to have influenced the Oscar-winning 1931 Western Cimarron,
    which also depicts the land rush.
    The 1939 Astor Pictures' re-release of Tumbleweeds
    includes an 8-minute introduction by the then 75-year-old Hart
    as he talks about his career and the "glories of the old west."
    Tumbleweeds was Hart's last movie



    Background
    In the Cherokee Strip of Oklahoma during the 1880s and early 1890s,
    the government lands that were leased to cattlemen were opened to settlement by homesteaders.
    To allow a fair chance for everyone, the prospective homesteaders were required
    to register and registrants were prohibited from entering into the Strip
    before the appointed time. Those who tried to get there beforehand were called "Sooners".
    Hence the nickname of Oklahoma is the Sooner State.
    When a cannon shot signaled the start of the land rush,
    a hundred thousand men and women tried to stake their claims.


    Contemporary reviews
    Reviews at the time of its release praised Tumbleweeds as good entertainment.
    The New York Times reviewed the film in 1925 and wrote that Hart's performance emphasized
    "righteousness, his mental dexterity and physical prowess" in the role of Carver. "Although much of Don Carver's accuracy in shooting and his turning up at the psychological moment is nothing but the camera's good work, ... Mr. Carver, impersonated by Mr. Hart, frequently won applause from the audience yesterday afternoon.


    A 1926 review of Tumbleweeds in Photoplay Magazine says "Bill Hart returns
    to the screen in a story laid in the time when the Indian territory was turned over to the homesteaders. The scene in which the prospective land owners, waiting for the cannon's boom which would send them racing in to stake their claims, furnished a brand new thrill...It is good entertainment."



    Modern reception
    Modern reviews of Tumbleweeds have lauded it as the high point of Hart's career
    and as a seminal film of the silent era that was unique for its era in
    its depiction of Native Americans and African Americans.
    Gary Johnson in Images Journal said that although Tumbleweeds
    was only a mild box-office success, it is arguably Hart's finest film.
    "The movie's most impressive sequence remains the land rush", wrote Johnson.
    "All manners of vehicles -- covered wagons, surreys, stagecoaches,
    even a large-wheeled bicycle -- bounce over the prairie in the mad rush to claim land.
    Other films would attempt to recreate the Oklahoma land rush -- such as Cimarron,
    which won the Best Picture Academy Award in 1931 -- but Tumbleweeds remains the best example."


    John Nesbitt wrote that Hart went out on a high note with Tumbleweeds
    "Tumbleweeds stands up remarkably well, and most film devotees will
    find it among the more interesting and entertaining melodramas of the silent era",
    wrote Nesbitt.
    Tammy Stone wrote that Hart was to Westerns what Chaplin was to comedy
    and that Hart managed to "both stay in the game and go out with a bang"
    in his last film Tumbleweeds. Hart's "last film is widely considered to be his masterpiece,
    and also one of the seminal films of the silent era", she added.
    Michael W. Phillips Jr. wrote in 2007 that the movie was unique
    in movies of the era because it included Native Americans who weren't faceless villains
    but Hart's friends and included African Americans among the boomers of 1889.
    " Today, the film holds a 100% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes.


    Hart's last movie
    Tumbleweeds was Hart's last movie.In 1939, Astor Pictures re-released the film and provided an eight-minute introduction that would be Hart's last appearance on film. In this introduction, he states:


    My friends, I loved the art of making motion pictures. It is as the breath of life to me ... the rush of the wind that cuts your face, the pounding hooves of the pursuing posse, and then the clouds of dust! Through the cloud of dust comes the faint voice of the director, "Now, Bill, OK! Glad you made it! Great stuff, Bill, great stuff! And, say, Bill! Give old Fritz a pat on the nose for me, will ya?" The saddle is empty, the boys up ahead are calling, they're waiting for you and me to help drive this last great round-up into eternity.


    Hart retired to his ranch in Newhall, California and although producers continued to offer him roles in sound films, he refused to return to the screen.


    Revival
    Silent Film organist Dennis James at a Ponca Theatre screening of the film.
    On September 14, 2007, Dennis James, a silent film musician, performed a score to Tumbleweeds in a live performance at the Poncan Theatre in Ponca City, Oklahoma as a special commission as part of a celebration of the one-hundredth anniversary of Oklahoma statehood.



    User Review


    Ohh...The Thrill of it All!
    6 March 2004 | by (bsmith5552,(Ottawa, Ontario, Canada)

    Best Wishes
    Keith
    London- England

    Edited once, last by ethanedwards ().