Tangled Trails

Canadian Mountie Neal Hart tracks gold-mine swindler Edward Roseman to New York City and back to Canada. Along the way, he learns some interesting facts about the girl he's sweet on, Violet Palmer.

Thanks to Grapevine Video's of this B Northwestern, I have been able to revise an opinion I've held for more than 30 years. While this may lack the polish of an A western, it has nothing to be ashamed of when it comes to matters of old-fashioned entertainment, and a decent story told briskly. Some people may find it a tad fast -- when he discovers that the first woman he encounters in New York, and saves from being insulted (i.e. Pawed) by Roseman is actually Miss Palmer's long-lost sister, some may roll their rolls. However, the decent, if old-fashioned camerawork, the haphazard construction on the frontier, and the ubiquitous snow of the wintry north all bespeak of good, solid, commercial movie-making, without much in the way of pretension.

"Sands of Sacrifice" is a very old fashioned silent movie with lots of melodrama which probably played a lot better when the film first debuted. Today, most would think it all too unbelievable and silly to be taken very seriously.

The story is set in Canada and involves a Mountie trying to catch an evil swindler. In the process, he also comes to meet a young lady who is being hidden in an out of the way cabin by her father. By the end of the film, the good guy manages to not only capture the Snidley Whiplash-like baddie but unravel WHY the man and young lady are in the wilderness and fix their problems as well.

The story is incredibly simplistic and most folks would probably never see a film like this in the first place. But, compared to other films of the day, it's about average.