Tumbleweeds (1925 film)

Infobox_Film
name = Tumbleweeds


caption = Theatrical poster to "Tumbleweeds" (1925)
writer = Hal G. Evarts
C. Gardner Sullivan (adaptation)
starring = William S. Hart
Barbara Bedford
director = William S. Hart (uncredited)
King Baggot
producer = William S. Hart
distributor =
released = December 20, 1925
runtime = 78 minutes
imdb_id = 0016461
amg_id = 1:51205 | country = USA
language = Silent film
English intertitles
budget =

"Tumbleweeds" is a 1925 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 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 1880's and early 1890's, 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.

Plot

Set in Caldwell, Kansas on the Kansas-Oklahoma border, the movie features cowboy Don Carver (Hart) as a "tumbleweed" (i.e., a drifter) who decides to settle down after falling in love with Molly Lassiter (Barbara Bedford). Carver decides to get in on the Cherokee Strip land rush but when he's arrested and parted from his new love, he's in danger of missing the big race. Lucien Littlefield plays a strong supporting role in the movie as Hart's comic sidekick and best friend.

Reviews

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, it should be noted that Mr. Carver, impersonated by Mr. Hart, frequently won applause from the audience yesterday afternoon." [http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=940CE3D71F38E233A25752C2A9649D946495D6CF The New York Times. "Tumbleweeds: The Screen; Clothes and Cosmetics" (1925)] ]

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." ["Photoplay Magazine". February, 1926.]

Modern Reviews

Modern reviews of "Tumbleweeds" have placed the movie 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. [http://www.imagesjournal.com/issue10/infocus/tumbleweeds.htm Images Journal. "30 Great Westerns: Tumbleweeds. Issue 10.] ] "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 hand 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. [http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1022112-tumbleweeds/articles/1217658/ Rotten Tomatoes. "Old School Reviews" by John 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. [http://www.things-and-other-stuff.com/movies/profiles/william-s-hart.html The Silent Collection. "Williams S. Hart"] ] 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. "With Hart's retirement from film, another important phase ended: serious, mature Westerns disappeared, and it would take another 25 years for Howard Hawks, Anthony Mann, and John Ford to use the Western for more grown-up ends than simple cowboys and Indians." [http://goatdog.com/moviePage.php?movieID=918 Goatdog's Movies. "Tumbleweeds." November 25, 2007.] ]

Hart's last movie

"Tumbleweeds" was Hart's last movie. In 1939, Hart re-released the film and provided an eight-minute introduction that would be his 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. [http://iaia.essortment.com/williamshart_rbcu.htm Essortment. "William S. Hart."] ]

Revival

Astor Pictures rereleased the film in 1939 with music, sound effects, and Hart speaking a prologue.

On September 14, 2007, Dennis James, a silent film musician, performed a score to "Tumbleweeds" in a live performance at the Poncan Theater in Ponca City, Oklahoma as a special commission as part of a celebration of the one-hundredth anniversary of Oklahoma statehood.Carl Bennett, [http://www.silentera.com/people/musicians/James-Dennis.html Dennis James] on SilentEra.com. Accessed online 16 January 2006.]

References

External links

* [http://www.flickr.com/photos/20881138@N00/sets/72157602030121415/ Dennis James plays accompanies "Tumbleweeds" in Ponca City, Oklahoma September 14, 2007.]