Review of Bad Lands

Bad Lands (1939)
7/10
And Then There Was One -- Pod'ner
3 November 2009
Warning: Spoilers
I watched Bad Lands on TCM during the wee hours this morning and was favorably impressed with this remake of 1934's The Lost Patrol, so like it in many ways, however this time in a Wild West setting.

I found it enjoyable to watch many 30's & 40's villains play against type as heroes instead of their usual nasties. On the other hand Noah Beery, Jr. to my knowledge, played a bad guy for the only time in his film career. Noah was not the son of actor Wallace Beery, but of noted silent screen villain Noah Beery, Sr., Wallace's brother.

Anyone notice that actor Douglas Walton played in both Lost Patrol and Bad Lands? In Patrol he was the first of Sgt. Victor McLaglen's troopers to die, while somehow in Bad Lands he managed to be the last of Sheriff Robert Barrat's posse to bite the dust. One might say this to have been poetic justice, I suppose.

Oh yes, I wish to mention 6-footer John Payne,outrageously miscast as the Indian, Apache Jack. Let's face it: Geronimo he was not.
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