To the Last Man

A really great movie containing great stars & many future stars, most uncredited! A very young Randolph Scott in a piece of American (And worldwide) history. Feuds: In rural Kentucky, America or anywhere really, family feuds sprung up and lasted decades, long after anyone could remember what started the feud... (Think Hatfield's & McCoy's) A great human interest story about all the different personal (And inter-personnel) reasons and feelings that normal people have in family and area struggles. Synopsis: After the War Between the States a war tired Southerner returns home to Kentucky determined to stop the killing and end the feud. He takes his family west to find freedom, opportunity, and away from the feud. A good socially redeeming story and movie! To bad hollywood doesn't make these any more!

"To the Last Man" is an interesting film--partly because of a couple uncredited performances and partly because it is a very gritty sort of film. As far as the uncredited roles go, you'll see Shirley Temple just before she became a mega-star as well as a tiny appearance by John Carradine.

The film begins just after the Civil War. As a man returns to his wife in the hills of Kentucky, you see his father-in-law being murdered by a neighbor. The killing is all part of a long-standing feud (like the infamous Hatfield and McCoy feud) but instead of killing the perpetrator, the war vet has announced he's seen enough killing and takes the case to court. His family at first is upset he didn't kill the killer, but in the long run it was the logical thing to do. However, the murderer is NOT logical and vows to renew the feud after his 15 year sentence is complete. Now this guy is super-serious--and even after his enemy leaves Kentucky and moves to Nevada, he and his clan move west just so they can get their revenge!! But, instead of just shooting them, the ex-con plans on ruining their ranch--with the help of his best prison buddy. However, there is a monkey wrench in this plan--his daughter is about to fall in love with one of the enemy (Randolph Scott)! How's all this insanity going to end?! While the plot isn't all that remarkable, the film works because the film is very gritty and unsentimental. You'll see a lot of Pre-Code style violence--and this actually helps the film to be both realistic and creates a strong impact--especially during the big showdown at the end. Bold and gritty--and worth seeing.

After spending fifteen years in prison for killing the patriarch of a rival clan, Noah Beery heads west to continue the family feud that turned him into a murderer. While he attempts to goad his rivals into another round of killing, Beery's daughter falls for Randolph Scott, who as a boy watched him murder his grandfather.

Another decent entry in Paramount's Zane Grey series, this features early performances from Scott and Buster Crabbe, as well as an early directing job for the great Henry Hathaway.

It's also fairly interesting in it's use of the old silent film trick of introducing each cast member as they appear, via a subtitle and a little bit of precode skinny dipping.

Speaking of precode, this appears to be pre-common-sense as well, when in one scene a young Shirley Temple is sitting outside and a hidden bad guy shoots her doll in the head, which is only a few feet away. This might not seem very alarming today, but this was before the invention of modern special effects, when film studios employed actual sharpshooters for these types of scenes, a practice that was abandoned when James Cagney refused to do another film that involved him being shot at.

In other words, A LIVE ROUND WAS FIRED PAST SHIRLEY'S HEAD!!

The Haydens and Colbys are two mountain families who've had such a long term feud, everyone's forgotten what it started over. Never mind when Pop Colby (Noah Beery, Sr.) shoots Grandpa down in cold blood, Dad Hayden takes an unorthodox and cowardly approach in some eyes, he calls in the law.

The Haydens move west and Colby when he gets out of the joint takes the family and moves to where the Haydens are to take up where they left off. Along the way he has an ally, Jack LaRue, who has an agenda all his own.

Of course in Romeo&Juliet fashion, the Hayden son (Randolph Scott) and the Colby daughter(Esther Ralston} meet and flip for each other. If anything that throws gasoline on the feud fire.

This is one of the weakest of Randolph Scott's earlier westerns. I'm not sure if I'm seeing the complete film as a budget video company put out a re-release that looks like it was choppily edited. There are a lot of plot gaps and things that don't make sense.

This is also one of the earliest films of Shirley Temple who's big scene is when one of the Colbys shoots the head off of her doll. It wasn't for sadistic purposes but to get the Haydens to chase them. Still it's an earlier weepy for Shirley. She later did two more films with

Randolph Scott, Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm and Susannah of the Mounties and with her name above his at that point.

Also at the very end, the fadeout is Esther and Randy in what looks like a photograph of later domestic bliss. And the soundtrack was blaring the Bing Crosby hit Please. Kind of out of place, but since Paramount had the rights to it, they figured they had to use it.

The transfer of this film is horrible. It has been released by Alpha Video under the title of Law of Vengeance. THe movie starts off slow and is something of an oddity in the beginning. Law of Vengeance is the only film that I have seen that shows the actors credit on the screen when they enter the picture. For example, Randoplh Scott's character makes his entrance at 20 minutes into the picture. It is then that the screen credit "Randolph Scott as Lynn Hayden" rolls across the screen. I thought this was interesting.

About 30 minutes into this western the story starts to get good. Mostly due to Scott and the female character known as Ellen Colby. The dialogue is very good in places.

This western is of importance for a film historian. Not only was it directed by Henry Hathaway, it also stars Buster Crabbe, Barton Mclane, Jake Larue and two uncredited performances by a very young Shirley Temple and a young John Carradine. This film was important in the career of Randoplh Scott and if you are a fan of his, you definitely want to own this movie. At a price less that 5 dollars, it is surely worth it.