3 Bad Men (1926)

Information from IMDb

Plot Summary
In 1876, an old man finds gold in the Sioux lands,
provoking a gold and land rush from immigrants to Dakota.
On the way to Custer, the lonely cowboy Dan O'Malley helps
to fix the wheel of Mr. Carlton's wagon and flirts with his daughter Lee Carlton.
Later, Lee and her father are attacked by horse thieves and Mr. Carlton is murdered;
however, the outlaws "Bull" Stanley, Mike Costigan and "Spade" Allen
save her from the criminals and head with her to the camp where the pioneers
are waiting for President Grant proclamation to explore the lands.
In the site, the corrupt Sheriff Layne Hunter rules with his henchmen
with horror and injustice.
The trio of outlaws decides that Lee needs to get married and select Dan
to be her husband. When Bull's sister Millie Stanley is murdered by Hunter's right arm
Nat Lucas, "Bull" organizes the men to chase Hunter.
But it is 1877 and the gold and land race of wagons is ready to start.
Written by Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Full Cast
George O'Brien ... Dan O'Malley
Olive Borden ... Lee Carlton
Lou Tellegen ... Sheriff Layne Hunter
Tom Santschi ... 'Bull' Stanley
J. Farrell MacDonald ... Mike Costigan
Frank Campeau ... 'Spade' Allen
Priscilla Bonner ... Millie Stanley
Otis Harlan ... Editor Zach Little
Phyllis Haver ... Lily (prairie beauty)
Georgie Harris ... Joe Minsk
Alec B. Francis ... Rev. Calvin Benson (as Alec Francis)
Jay Hunt ... Nat Lucas (old prospector)
Grace Gordon ... Millie's Pal (uncredited)
George Irving ... Gen. Neville (uncredited)
Bud Osborne ... Hunter's Henchman (uncredited)
Vester Pegg ... Henchman Shooting Lucas (uncredited)
Walter Perry ... Pat Monahan (uncredited)

Writing Credits
Herman Whitaker (novel "Over the Border") (as Herman Whittaker)
John Stone adaptation, scenario and screenplay
Malcolm Stuart Boylan titles &
Ralph Spence titles

Original Music
Dana Kaproff (added in 2007)

Cinematography
George Schneiderman

Filming Locations
Jackson Hole, Wyoming, USA
Mojave Desert, California, USA

3 Bad Men is a 1926 American Western film directed by John Ford.
Bob Mastrangelo has called it "One of John Ford's greatest silent epics.
" The film had inspired the title for Akira Kurosawa's 1958 film
Three Bad Men in a Hidden Fortress, simply known as
The Hidden Fortress in the rest of the world.

This is real good entertainment - the kind the whole family can enjoy.
A gripping and forceful story, the marvelous scenic effects, the romantic and tragic conditions
of the great West, and the beautiful photography combine to make this one of the best pictures of the month. The story is centered around the pioneers of America.
Those courageous human beings who gathered together their little belongings and traveled and settled in the West - the land of gold. Worthwhile.

"Three Bad men" is a superb picturization of the West in the '70's, replete with John Ford,
the director's, deft, human touches.
But its emotional appeal is almost nil because of a plot that moves slowly
* what little there is of it. Yet, because of the magnificence of the scenery,
the beauty of the grouping and lighting, this is not as serious a drawback
as it might have been under direction less inspired.

The story is built around the opening of the Dakotas to the homesteaders in 1877,
and the characters, who are many and various, include three men on whose heads a price
has been set by the United States and Mexico; a girl and her father from Virginia;
a boy from Ireland; a villainous sheriff, and an array of lesser characters,
all of whom are sharply distinct and, with one exception, wholly believable,
and that exception does not matter.

George O'Brien and Olive Borden are hero and heroine,
while the "bad" men are J. Farrell McDonald, Tom Santschi,
and Frank Campeau

With courtesy of the movie's web-site
3 Bad Men

User Review

Quote

"At a smile-a-minute pace"
31 December 2008 | by Steffi_P (Ruritania)
It seems John Ford made his best films when a great story happened to coincide with his own sensibilities. For a director who filmed masculine camaraderie with more tenderness than male-female romance, and almost gave more weight to the comic asides than the actual plot, 3 Bad Men seems tailor-made – a Western in which the eponymous outlaws are the heroes, and the love story between Olive Borden and the more typically heroic George O'Brien becomes a subplot.

Ford's tendency to improvise gags, and expand comic relief to entire scenes is often a bit excessive, but in 3 Bad Men it does not matter so much because the comedy characters are protagonists rather than supporting players threatening to steal the show. In fact the laughs we have had throughout the film make the poignant finale really pay off. You get a similar effect in Charlie Chaplin's features. What's more, Tom Santschi, J. Farrell MacDonald and Frank Campeau, big ugly supporting players that they were, were nevertheless great actors who here prove themselves fully capable of emotional depth.

Ford, meanwhile, can be seen gradually developing into a confident craftsman, especially as regards his shot composition. While his earliest pictures featured framing that was pretty yet distracting, he now achieves the same aesthetics with far more subtlety. A major difference is that whereas before the framing devices were "fixed" items – for example a tree or a canopy – he now achieves a more natural look – a figure leaning against a post in the foreground here, the end of a wagon there. He still occasionally makes use of the old-fashioned "heavier" framing, but only to highlight a key moment, for example enclosing Olive Borden and Tom Santschi between two cavern walls towards the end.

This is of course also an epic pioneer Western and, although the historical context is not paramount as it is in The Iron Horse, Ford constantly reminds us that a civilization is being built in the background – literally. As in many of his pictures, he balances the story of individuals with the story of masses, often in the same frame, so a dialogue scene might take place with a few horses or wagons trailing past in the distance – always done with so much control so as not to let the one outbalance the other. Perhaps the best example is in an emotional little vignette at the end of the land rush scene – a wagon fills most of the screen, but Ford allows a tiny gap on the left to show the settlers carrying on in the background – just keeping that part of the story going without allowing it to dominate.

By the way, the new Dana Kaproff score that accompanies the recent "Ford at Fox" restoration of 3 Bad Men is also very good. This is as far as I can tell the only silent score Kaproff (normally a TV composer) has done, but he handles the form with skill. It's full of little touches that I like – for example, about twenty minutes in there is a brief scene of George O'Brien's character carrying on his way, singing his song, silhouetted against the sun. Kaproff, rather than giving us the same tune, uses a minor key variation. We recognise it as O'Malley's signature tune, but it just has that little difference that stops it becoming samey, while at the same time corresponding to the sombre tone of the shot.

3 Bad Men is probably Ford's best silent picture. Here at last he has been given a story in which the silhouettes of men on horseback riding across the plains can be tinged with both excitement and poignancy. That was where romance truly lay for old Jack Ford.

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