This film is one of over 200 titles in the list of independent feature films made available for television presentation by Advance Television Pictures announced in Motion Picture Herald 4 April 1942. At this time, television broadcasting was in its infancy, almost totally curtailed by the advent of World War II, and would not continue to develop until 1945-46. Because of poor documentation (feature films were often not identified by title in conventional sources) no record has yet been found of its initial television broadcast. It's earliest documented telecast was Sunday 26 September 1948 on WATV, New York City. In Chicago it first aired Monday 4 April 1949 on WBKB (Channel 4), in Detroit Friday 22 July 1949 on WJBK (Channel 2), in Philadelphia Wednesday 17 August 1949 on Frontier Playhouse on WPTZ (Channel 3), and in Salt Lake City Monday 26 December 1949 on KDYL (Channel 4).
Near the beginning of the film, when Mac announces the riding test will be on Thursday, 'Joe' pipes up and says "Why, that's only two days!" 'Joe' might possibly be Tyrone Power, though technically he is only identified as an uncredited "Mountie."
Power's first role on film was as an 18-year-old in Tom Brown of Culver (1932). A strikingly handsome young actor, Tyrone Jr. still struggled to find work, and briefly went East to work in the theater. After a screen test led to a contract at 20th Century Fox in 1936, he quickly rose to become a romantic swashbuckling star.
Power came from a theatrical family going back to his great-grandfather who was a famed Irish comedian. His father, Tyrone Power Sr., was a huge theater star and later famed matinee idol; his mother was a Shakespearean actress as well as a respected dramatic coach. Tyrone Jr. was separated with his mother in his parent's divorce but his father wrote, encouraging his acting aspirations. Four years before this film, in 1931, while a 17 year old, as a supernumerary (supernumerary actors are usually amateur character actors in opera and ballet performances who train under professional direction to create a believable scene) in his father's stage production of 'The Merchant of Venice' in Chicago, he held his 62-year-old father as he died suddenly of a massive heart attack at work. This sadly would echo his own end---dying also on the job, at age 44.
Power's first role on film was as an 18-year-old in Tom Brown of Culver (1932). A strikingly handsome young actor, Tyrone Jr. still struggled to find work, and briefly went East to work in the theater. After a screen test led to a contract at 20th Century Fox in 1936, he quickly rose to become a romantic swashbuckling star.
Power came from a theatrical family going back to his great-grandfather who was a famed Irish comedian. His father, Tyrone Power Sr., was a huge theater star and later famed matinee idol; his mother was a Shakespearean actress as well as a respected dramatic coach. Tyrone Jr. was separated with his mother in his parent's divorce but his father wrote, encouraging his acting aspirations. Four years before this film, in 1931, while a 17 year old, as a supernumerary (supernumerary actors are usually amateur character actors in opera and ballet performances who train under professional direction to create a believable scene) in his father's stage production of 'The Merchant of Venice' in Chicago, he held his 62-year-old father as he died suddenly of a massive heart attack at work. This sadly would echo his own end---dying also on the job, at age 44.
The second of Kermit Maynard's "Mountie" actioners for Ambassador Pictures, Northern Frontier (1935) was a major improvement on the first (The Fighting Trooper (1934)), which in itself wasn't such a bad picture either. On behalf of the Feds, Royal Mountie McKenzie (Maynard) joins a gang of counterfeiters. The story becomes a bit hard to believe at this point, since McKenzie is so clean-cut and heroic that it's a wonder the villains aren't tipped off to his true identity from the get-go. Magnificently photographed in Northern California, Northern Frontier was ostensibly based on a story by James Oliver Curwood (whose name was automatically attached to practically every Mountie movie ever made!).
Northern Frontier (1935) was suggested by the short story "Four Minutes Late" by James Oliver Curwood (publication undetermined).
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