THE CARRIBOO TRAIL
US, 1950, 81 minutes, Colour.
Randolph Scott, George 'Gabby' Hayes, Bill Williams, Karin, Victor Jory, Jim Davis, Dale Robertson, Lee Tung Foo.
Directed by Edward L.Marin.
From 1946 to 1962, Randolph Scott made around 40 Westerns – and only two non-Westerns plus guest spot in Starlift. This is not one of his best Westerns, it is a very average one.
The setting is the north-west of the United States and moving into British Columbia, a trek into the local goldfields. Randolph Scott agrees to prospect with his associate but also drives his cattle along mountain paths. This angers his friend who is wounded in an ambush and stampede, losing his arm, becoming very bitter towards Scott and not wanting to see him again. On the way, they meet an old prospector, George ‘Gabby’ Hayes in his last film. They refuse to pay an imposed toll on a small creek bridge, stampede the cattle across, defy the local power man, Frank Walsh, played with a rather icy calm and ruthlessness by a bespectacled Victor Jory.
There are scenes of cattle drives, of course, rides across mountains to see the open grass plains suitable for cattle, skirmishes with Indians (rather simplistic for 1950, the year of Broken Arrow, with Hayes wanting an Indian who talked English, finding that the chief did, and instead of negotiation, relies on a bucking his mule, scattering the Indians who pursue Scott who escapes on horse, shooting at them. Not a high moment of Native American- White relations in the movies.
Scott finds gold, but has to pay for the destroying the bridge. There are quite a number of fistfights, especially with Frank Walsh’s henchmen and a confrontation with his now one-armed hostile friend.
The local saloon is owned by Francie, who built it up by her own efforts and is resisting Walsh’s demands that she sell it to him. Obviously, there are traces of love interest with Scott.
All turns out well at the end, with Walsh’s overthrow, Scott settling down, Hayes finding his sister-in-law who supports the cattle drive. And some romance.
