Dawn on the Great Divide (1942) - Buck Jones Last Film - 16mm Western

Description

This is a 16mm print of the Buck Jones Western, Dawn on the Great Divide (1942). It is on 3M film stock with excellent contrast that is so good, I almost thought it was an original print. The quality is so nice that it might not be a dupe. It may be a 35mm Reduction. There is no vinegar odor. It is on two 1600' reels and has a running time of approximately 69 minutes.
Dawn on the Great Divide (1942) Directed by Howard Bretherton. Based on the story “Wheels of Fire,” by James Oliver Curwood. Cast: Buck Jones, Mona Barrie, Raymond Hatton, Robert Lowery, Rex Bell, Maude Eburne, Christine McIntyre, Betty Blythe, Robert Frazer, Harry Woods, Tristram Coffin, Lee Shumway, Roy Barcroft, Steve Clark, Warren Jackson, Jan Wiley, Victor Adamson, Horace B. Carpenter, Iron Eyes Cody, Spade Cooley, Ben Corbett, Jack Daley, Rube Dalroy, Herman Hack, Al Haskell, Reed Howes, I. Stanford Jolley, Ray Jones, Merrill McCormick, Art Mix, Kansas Moehring, Dennis Moore, Milburn Morante, George Morrell, Artie Ortego, Bud Osborne, Charles Soldani, George Sowards and Chief Yowlachie.
Dawn on the Great Divideis only 69 minutes long, slightly longer than every other B-western made in the 1940s, but the budget for Dawn on the Great Divide has to have been higher than most of them. The very full cast re-creating a wagon train heading west, headed by Buck Roberts (Buck Jones), is nicely done in authentic-looking detail. In some ways, this might even be considered a forerunner of the TV series called Wagon Train that came along much later. Each group of travelers has their own story, and not all of them turn out to be happy ones, and Buck certainly has his hands full as he does his best to deal with them. The greatest obstacle in their path, however, is the gang of crooks waiting for them at Beaver Lake, if they can only get there.
Sad to say, this was Buck Jones’ last movie. It ends with him heading out with the wagons, but saying to Sadie Rand (Mona Barrie) that maybe he ought to settle down, and aw shucks, ma’am, maybe she wouldn’t mind waiting for him until he heads back that way again. But before the movie was even released, Buck Jones was one of the hundreds who perished in the notorious fire at the Coconut Grove in Boston late in November 1942 while he was on a combination war bond selling tour and promotional junket.
He was 50 years old when he died, and there are some resemblances between him and Randolph Scott as he appeared in his later westerns: rugged and solid, and very much a man of the west. Dawn on the Great Divide is a fine tribute to Buck's memory.