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Tumbleweeds

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In 1925 when TUMBLEWEEDS was released, William S. Hart was 60 years old and been had supplanted at the box office by a host of cowboy stars like Tom Mix who were much flashier and far less realistic. Hart wanted to go out on top and that is just what he did. TUMBLEWEEDS is set during the opening of the Cherokee Strip and his recreation of the mad scramble for the newly opened up Indian lands is a landmark in cinema history which has been copied many times but without the same sense of immediacy that is depicted here.

All the elements of earlier Hart westerns are here, the shy hero, the woman in distress, the 19th century code of honor (Hart was born in 1865), rugged action sequences involving Hart and above all the rugged natural locations of a now vanished West. The production values are high, the photography splendid, and the supporting cast top notch especially Barbara Bedford as Hart's love interest Molly. Bedford played strong independent women during her brief career most notably in the 1920 LAST OF THE MOHICANS.

This new DVD release is an enhanced copy of the old Killiam Collection VHS version that has been around for a while but it has never looked this good. Also included is the 1939 eight minute prologue that Hart did for the film's reissue. Hart was 74 by this time and his recounting of the making of his films and the Old West that he knew is not only informative but also quite poignant. This film is his lasting legacy, a legacy that stretches from Gary Cooper to Clint Eastwood, and it's great to have it on DVD at last.

This version of "Tumbleweeds" from Image Entertainment was a great disappointment to me. The William S. Hart classic deserves better treatment. Billed as a "restored" version, it is anything but. The print is scratchy and grainy. To make things worse, some of the original opening title sequences have been replaced with modern computer generated titles. The black and white movie has been tinted to a yellowish sepia tone further detracting from the original film. Better copies are available on budget labels.

TUMBLEWEEDS is a fitting coda to the career of arguably the greatest cowboy star of the silent era, William S. Hart. It is also a grand introduction to a viewer unfamiliar with his work.
Usually I don't mind watching a dvd in sequence, but TUMBLEWEEDS opens with an introduction, "Farewell to the Screen," Hart filmed for the 1939 reissue of his 1925 silent classic. Hart, decked out in cowboy hat and bandana against a desert landscape tells us a little about the film - it's about the opening of the Cherokee Strip in 1889. He also tells us why he retired from movies and how important his career was to him. Listening to him we hear a speech that borders on the maudlin, and the impression isn't relieved much by the swelling violin under-score. Hart's voice reminds me a bit of a water-down Franklin Roosevelt (Hart was born in New York and moved west in his youth.) None of this is unpleasant or even out of place, but it leaves an incongruous memory when the title card reads a drawling "varmint" or "I reckon." If you're new to Hart, as I was, I'd suggest you watch the movie before playing the introduction.
Hart plays `tumbleweed' Dan Carver. A tumbleweed, Carver explains to pretty Molly Lassiter (Barbara Bedford), is a footloose and rootless man of the open range. Hart was 60 years old when TUMBLEWEEDS was filmed, and although he probably never looked his age (he just wore that bandana higher and higher off his neck, I guess) it's a little strange to see him aw-shucks a-courting the 23-year-old Bedford.
Well, the love story is secondary, anyway. TUMBLEWEEDS is famous for the opening of the strip scene, and the sequence leading to the "maddest stampede in American history" is brilliantly edited. It is a quick cut montage of troopers checking their pocket watches to a penned Hart to the anxious and distraught girl to yet another shot of an advancing wall clock. Finally the cannon is shot and the race is on. It's a timelessly beautiful bit of film art.
Another scene I was particularly fond of occurred a little earlier in the movie. The government ordered all cattle removed from the strip prior to the run of the homesteaders. Hart, riding point, and four other tumbleweeds rest their horses on a rise and watch the cattle being rounded out. The men identify the vanishing herds - those are the Circle Dot, those are the Diamond Bar. Hart removes his hat and announces "Boys, it's the last of the west." The others remove their hats as well and the camera holds them in a medium long shot for a few long seconds before fading to silhouette and then to black. It's a understated moment, and the fact that it comes in Hart's final western gives it an added poignancy.
TUMBLEWEEDS was transferred from a restored print, but the restoration was done in 1975. Anyone expecting a digital restoration will be disappointed. There are scratches and flares a-plenty, although not to the point of distraction. It also contains the "original piano score" of William Perry. The score was written for the 1975 restoration and not for the original release. Still, it adds rather than detracts from the movie.
TUMBLEWEEDS will reward anyone willing to give a silent movie a go. The acting is naturalistic, there's plenty of action and the good guys win in the end. Heck, we don't even have to squirm through the hero kissing the girl (although I think I remember seeing Hart give his horse a quick peck.) What more could you ask for?

Before John Wayne and Clint Eastwood, there was William S. Hart, whose immensely popular Westerns of the silent era set the mould for all good Westerns to come, and "Tumbleweeds" is a shining example. With authentic-looking sets and characters, Hart's Westerns made the American West vividly come back to life, and although no speech is heard in these silent films, the intertitles succinctly convey the language and mentality of the time. In "Tumbleweeds" this time is of the real-life event when the Cherokee Strip was opened to homesteaders resulting in `the biggest stampede in American history', and these exciting action scenes are some of the highlights of this film. Like all of Hart's Westerns, a realistic feeling of the times is created by use of various details such as the different brand names of the cattle herds and ranches which were driven out of their grazing land by the Government's decree to open the land to settlers. But despite Hart's stony-faced demeanour which is reminiscent of Clint Eastwood in his popular Westerns, he still manages to bring his characters to life with a surprising depth of feeling. Alongside the historic action and drama, a romance and some criminal intrigue all make for a good story which has suspense and a few moments of humour. This restored version from the Killiam Collection has very good picture quality and a standard piano accompaniment, but the highlight on this DVD is the 1936 introduction spoken by William S. Hart himself, giving quite a moving and theatrical tribute to the West, while also revealing his own deep passion for making motion picture Westerns. Along with my personal favourite Hart Western "The Toll Gate", this film ranks with the best silent films of this genre, and while its production might not be as grand and smooth as John Ford's "The Iron Horse" for example, it is the star, William S. Hart, who makes his Westerns stand out and be popular all these decades later.

Though it's great to have William S. Hart's "Tumbleweeds" on DVD, the overall print quality is disappointing. Fortunately, I still own the Blackhawk Films videocassette, which features an excellent transfer and Hart's poignant 1939 introduction. Why Image Entertainment did not use the untinted Blackhawk print remains a mystery. One hopes this 1925 classic will receive the full restoration it so richly deserves.

The crescendo of the great 1925 silent Western "Tumbleweeds" starring William S. Hart is its recreation of the Oklahoma land run of 1889, when thousands of homesteaders and settlers gathered to claim land. You saw it in "Far and Away" with Tom Cruise (1992) and in the two versions of "Cimarron" (1931 and 1960). Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman had color, sound, and music -- not to mention more than six decades of advances in cameras, camera work, film, and editing -- to heighten the dramatic effect of the land rush sequence. With none of those except a piano accompaniment, the sequence in "Tumbleweeds" is just as thrilling.

Watching "Tumbleweeds" can teach a lot about moviemaking in the silent era, and it shows how the Westerns of that era pioneered story lines, characters, and effects still seen today. Hart's performance, even with the overacting made necessary by the lack of recorded dialog, seems to anticipate Randolph Scott's strong and silent persona; the willingness to stand for what's right, come what may, of Gary Cooper in "High Noon"; or Kevin Costner meeting Annette Bening in "Open Range." These later stars, even if they had not watched Hart films, were drawing some of their performance from film conventions that Hart made part of the genre.

Some introspection -- an awareness of one's personal response to various film scenes -- can also teach how times have changed. Many of the film's old values -- standing for the right, winning the heart of another, thrill at the sheer drama of a great moment in history, and the implicit draw of farm, home, and family as a life's dream -- show cultural and emotional links between Hart's time and ours.

On the other hand, for a self-aware viewer the film's old sentimentality and moral outlook throw the effect of social changes over the more than eight decades since the film was made into high relief. An old man's sentiment is a young man's mush, of course. In the gathering of the homesteaders, too, a modern viewer may gasp at the raw greed for land or ask whether there's a different, revisionist "narrative" of the settlement of Oklahoma.

In one scene, an old couple reads the 23rd Psalm the night before the jumpoff. They read "He maketh me lie down in green pastures" and think that God will favor their hope for new land. For some viewers, the scene may warm the heart. For others, it may seem a 1920s gesture to shallow American religiosity.

Perhaps this is all too cerebral. Enjoy the film for its story, characterizations, and its portrayal of a dramatic event in American history. Notice that no cowboy star of our own time quite conveys upright manliness with his erect stance and stride in quite the way Hart did (only Robert Duvall in "Broken Trail" and "Open Range" comes close). And Hart's screen manner included handshakes that meant something.

A few more notes: (1) Hart's horse was "Fritz," the predecessor to Tom Mix's "Tony," Gene Autry's "Champion," and Roy Rogers' "Trigger." (2) You'll notice the comically endearing performance by Lucien Littlefield as Hart's sidekick "Kentucky." (3) Hart was a stickler for authentic costuming and scenes, so "Tumbleweeds" conveys a more accurate "look" of the old West than many other Westerns. (4) Most versions of the DVD include Hart's introduction to the 1939 second release of the film, which also served as his "Farewell to the Screen." It's worth its own analysis.

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