8mm Forum: Dawn on the Great Divide (1942)

This is topic Dawn on the Great Divide (1942) in forum 8mm Print Reviews at 8mm Forum.

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Posted by Dave Ruth (Member # 4596) on June 05, 2017, 10:31 AM:

Picked this up off eBay last week for a fair price. It's a Niles 4x400 feature length release. It has decent contrast, sound and picture considering who released it. Not the best looking print, but certainly not the worst, and since this is a Monogram Picture I don't know how crisp the print would have been to begin with.

Now normally Westerns aren't my forte, but this particular film caught my attention because of it's price point and for the trivia note "Final film role of Buck Jones." And down the rabbit hole I went...

The lead actor Buck Jones died shortly after this film was completed. He was one of the 492 people killed in the Cocoanut Grove fire of 1942, the deadliest nightclub fire in history. I did a little research and the whole thing is incredibly tragic and was responsible for serious reforms as it pertains to fire safety and building codes.

Anyway, onto the film itself...

Synopsis (from IMDB): Buck Roberts is leading a wagon train of railroad supplies and Jim Corkle and his henchman Loder are out to stop them by using white men dressed as Indians for the attacks.

Sounds like run of the mill stuff, but actually I was surprised with this little film. I don't remember 40s Westerns being so brutal. A pregnant woman dies while giving birth. One of the characters Sadie Rand sings "Rock of Ages" at the woman's funeral, in one of the more depressing scenes you will see. Then she and her husband adopt the child, only to have her husband gunned down 5 minutes later. In fact half of Buck's crew gets murdered. Not at all what I was expecting, but I would definitely recommend it if you have an hour to kill!

As a weird side note, the final scene of Buck Jones' career sees Buck giving the eyes to the now widowed Sadie as she holds her newly adopted son, and telling her he really should settle down and have a family. There's a pause. Then he leaves. The End.

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