A saloon owner searches for a 'medicine arrow' which he believes is the key to huge wealth. A prime example of what happens when you try to cram a size 18 body into a size 10 article: most everything falls out - and what stays in is a lumpy mess that's unpleasant to gaze upon. Custer's Last Stand is a 5+ hour serial condensed down to 90 minutes, and the results are predictably shoddy. Custer is a peripheral figure, just one of a large cast whose heydays were either behind them or never to materialise, and his famous Last Stand is little more than half-a-dozen Indians listlessly circling a group of three or four white men. 'Hopelessly outnumbered,' Custer and his men each meet a death of comical hokiness. I have to say one expects better from a movie with character names like Striker Martin, Keen Blade and Kit Cardigan.
2 Reviews
Exciting cutdown!
JohnHowardReid19 September 2014
Warning: Spoilers
This is a rather good condensation of the 1935 serial produced by Louis Weiss and his son, Adrian Weiss. Good old Louis Weiss and his brothers, Adolph and Max, were the famed Weiss Brothers who founded the so- called Superior Talking Pictures which produced and/or distributed around twenty-three bottom-of-the-barrel westerns from 1928 through 1939, plus a serial, "Captured in Chinatown" starring "Tarzan" (a dog!), directed by Elmer Clifton and a Charles Starrett non-western directed by Irvin Willat, "Damaged Love". Anyway, by the humble Weiss standard, "Custer's Last Stand: is actually pretty exciting. Our main disappointment is that around half the interesting actors pictured in the credits don't appear in the cutdown at all. But on the other hand, there are no jump cuts or obviously missing footage to alert people to the fact that they are actually watching a remarkably skillful condensation which ran over 91 minutes – and still does! – when originally released back in 1936.The full, 15-chapter serial ran no less than 328 minutes. So 328 cutdown to 91 means there's an awful lot of missing footage on the very good Alpha DVD which also features a 1935 Kermit Maynard western."Northern Frontier".
Anyway, the serial cutdown features Frank McGlynn who is surprisingly charismatic as General Custer, especially considering that he spent nearly half of his Hollywood career (1924-1938) in uncredited walk- ons. Also to the fore in the acting stakes is Rex Lease as our hero, Kit Cardigan. Rex isn't even mentioned on Alpha's DVD blurb. Such is fame! But at least his name is printed in bold type. Of course, the actor we're all waiting for is George Chesebro. Despite the fact that he's not even mentioned or listed on the DVD, George has a large and super-important role here which will delight all his fans. And although he's not exactly sympathetic, he's not the villain either. That role is held by Reed Howes, assisted by villainous Chief Thundercloud who is also consistently on hand. Elmer Clifton's surprisingly skillful direction is also a major asset. And speaking of surprises, production values are remarkably high.
Anyway, the serial cutdown features Frank McGlynn who is surprisingly charismatic as General Custer, especially considering that he spent nearly half of his Hollywood career (1924-1938) in uncredited walk- ons. Also to the fore in the acting stakes is Rex Lease as our hero, Kit Cardigan. Rex isn't even mentioned on Alpha's DVD blurb. Such is fame! But at least his name is printed in bold type. Of course, the actor we're all waiting for is George Chesebro. Despite the fact that he's not even mentioned or listed on the DVD, George has a large and super-important role here which will delight all his fans. And although he's not exactly sympathetic, he's not the villain either. That role is held by Reed Howes, assisted by villainous Chief Thundercloud who is also consistently on hand. Elmer Clifton's surprisingly skillful direction is also a major asset. And speaking of surprises, production values are remarkably high.
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