Little Pioneer

Little Pioneer (1937)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Technicolor short from Warner about rival families who must put their differences behind them when one of their daughters is kidnapped by blood-thirsty tribe. I think a lot of people are going to watch this thing today and question the two white families being "forced" to stick together and fight off the evil black tribe but I don't think this was the original intent so the racial stuff is probably a non-issue. The film takes place in South Africa during 1880 and for the most part I think they got the look right but that's about it. There's very little going on here, story wise, to get overly excited about as we've seen this type of thing before. Naturally, in the two families we have a man who loves a woman on the other side and this just adds drama that we've seen in countless other films. A young Jane Wyman plays the love interest who ends up kidnapped but she gets very little to do. Sybil Jason, Carlyle Moore, Jr. and Frederick Vogeding round out the supporting cast. The Technicolor is certainly another major plus but the two musical numbers add zero as does the majority of the story.