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SLIFF 2014 – TUMBLEWEEDS (1925) Screens at The King Baggot Tribute November 14th
TUMBLEWEEDS will screen Friday, November 14th at Webster University’s Moore Auditorium as part of The King Baggot Tribute at the St. Louis International Film Festival. It will be preceded by a 35mm showing of the 1913 version of IVANHOE featuring live music by The Rats and People Motion Picture Orchestra and an illustrated lecture on the life and career of King Baggot by We Are Movie Geeks own Tom Stockman. TUMBLEWEEDS will feature live piano accompaniment by Matt Pace
William S. Hart (1864-1946) was the first great star of the movie western. Fascinated by tales of the Old West, Hart actually acquired Billy the Kid’s six-shooter and was a friend with legendary lawmen Wyatt Earp and Bat Masterson. He entered films in 1914 where, after playing supporting roles in shorts, achieved stardom as the lead in the western THE BARGAIN. Hart was particularly interested in making his westerns realistic and his are noted for their authentic costumes and props, as well as Hart’s outstanding acting ability, which he had developed on Shakespearean theater stages before his film career.
Beginning in 1915, Hart starred in his own series of two-reel western shorts which were incredibly popular and he soon made the transition into features. In 1915 and 1916 exhibitors voted Hart the biggest money making star in the US and many of his early films continued to play in theaters, often under new titles, for another decade. Hart often rode a brown and white pinto named Fritz who was the forerunner of later famous movie horses known by their own name such as Tom Mix’s Tony, Roy Rogers’s Trigger and Clayton Moore’s Silver. By the early 1920s, however, Hart’s brand of gritty, rugged westerns with shabby costumes and moralistic themes eventually fell out of fashion. Hart insisted on sticking to his tried-and-true formula for making films that emphasized plot and characterization over action, but the public had become smitten by a new type of movie cowboy, epitomized by Tom Mix, who wore flashier costumes and was faster with the action.
St. Louis-born actor King Baggot had been a huge star with the New York-based IMP studios between 1909 and 1916, and was known as the first ‘King of the Movies’. By the time he migrated to Hollywood in 1919, he was pushing 40 and displaced as fan favorite by the likes of Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks, and John Barrymore. His old boss, IMP founder Carl Laemmle, now head of Universal Studios, was a loyal friend who appreciated all the success Baggot had brought to IMP the previous decade. Baggot had some experience directing and writing some of his own shorts, so Laemmle hired Baggot as a feature director for Universal. Baggot quickly found success as a ‘women’s director’ helming starlets such as Mary Pickford, Marie Provost, and Baby Peggy Montgomery in a string of popular features. By 1925 he had ventured into films with more action such as THE KENTUCKY DERBY and THE TORNADO, many starring the rugged British actor House Peters.
William S.Hart, who had been dropped by Paramount Studios, made one last bid for his kind of western with TUMBLEWEEDS in 1925, producing the film with his own money to be released through United Artists. He chose a story by Hal Evarts and hired C. Gardner Sullivan, who had written THE BARGAIN, to write the screenplay. He chose King Baggot to direct based on his success with the House Peters films. TUMBLEWEEDS had a big ambitious story and was an expensive film to make – budgeted at a whopping $312,000. The title TUMBLEWEEDS refers to that pervasive plant that blows in the wind, symbolizing the role of the cowboys who once prided themselves on their rootless and roving nature. Early in TUMBLEWEEDS, the government has ordered the removal of cattle from a region known as the Cherokee Strip to prepare for its settlement. Vast herds are seen being driven across the landscape. Hart’s Don Carver, one of the last drifters, removes his hat and remarks “Boys, it’s the last of the West”
TUMBLEWEEDS takes place in 1899 when the Cherokee Strip was opened up to homesteaders. When that happens, Carver (Hart), the range boss for the Box K Ranch, finds himself out of work. Carver falls in love with Molly Lassiter (Barbara Bedford), the daughter of one of the families of homesteaders who have gathered in Caldwell, Kansas, preparing for the big land rush. Carver joins up with the homesteaders in the hope that he can get a piece of land and claim the site of the Box K ranchhouse, which controls the water for the strip. But he is falsely arrested and has to break free to take part in the land rush. Hart was sixty years old when TUMBLEWEEDS was made while his leading lady Barbara Bedford was just 22. comic relief was provided by Lucien Littlefield as Carver’s sidekick, Kentucky Rose and it was the only time Hart ever had a sidekick – before he always rode solo.
King Baggot with William S. Hart on the set of TUMBLEWEEDS
Visually, TUMBLEWEEDS is an enthralling film and it has become an influential Western classic. The direction by Baggot and camerawork by Joesph August are magnificent.
Film critics at the time praised Tumbleweeds as great entertainment.
The New York Times wrote that Hart’s performance:
“emphasized righteousness, mental dexterity and physical prowess. Although much of Don Carver’s accuracy in shooting and his turning up at the psychological moment is nothing but the camera’s good work, … Mr. Carver, impersonated by Mr. Hart, frequently won applause from the audience yesterday afternoon.”
Photoplay Magazine wrote:
“Bill Hart returns to the screen in a story laid in the time when the Indian territory was turned over to the homesteaders. The scene in which the prospective land owners, waiting for the cannon’s boom which would send them racing in to stake their claims, furnished a brand new thrill…It is good entertainment.”
TUMBLEWEEDS holds up beautifully today. Film historian Kevin Brownlow went so far as to call it
“among the finest sequences of pure action in film history”.
Film historian Georges Sadoul best summed up the film’s appeal in Dictionary of Films when he wrote:
“The climactic land rush is one of the cinema’s most bravura action sequences, impeccably constructed and edited and with some virtuoso trick riding by Hart. The pure morality of Hart’s character may seem naive, but the authentic flavor of a “wild, lost America” and the evocation of the pioneering spirit gives TUMBLEWEEDS a sense of poignant poetry.”
As productions go, it was meant to be an epic. Nearly 1000 extras were used in the land rush scenes, as well as 300 wagons, a thousand head of horses and mules, goats, dogs, and other livestock. The action was shot at the La Aguerro Ranch in Newhall, California. As many as 19 cameras were there filming. Much has been written about the kinds of cameras employed, the use of ‘pit shots’ where horses and riders and wagons travel directly over cameras dug into trenches, and the shots of Hart and his horse, literally airborn in the dash for the ranch. For 1925, this was stunning filmmaking. Other films would attempt to recreate the Oklahoma land rush — such as CIMARRON, which won the Best Picture Academy Award in 1931 — but TUMBLEWEEDS remains the best example.
William Hart’s hopes for a career revival faded when United Artists, who had little faith in “another Western” failed to book TUMBLEWEEDS in large theaters in big cities. Hart held little interest in continuing to make movies designed to appeal to mass audience and subsequently retired to his Horseshoe Ranch in Newhall, California. TUMBLEWEEDS was granted new life when it was reissued in 1939 by Astor Pitures to cash in on the newest Western cycle launched by John Ford’s megahit STAGECOACH. It was re-edited, sound effects were added, and a 74-year old Hart appeared in a new 7-minute long prologue where he gave a dramatic and moving speech about the death of the old West.
Now lucky St. Louis-area silent film buffs will get the chance to see TUMBLEWEEDS on the big screen with live music when it plays Friday November 14th at Webster University’s Moore Auditorium as part of The King Baggot Tribute at the St. Louis International Film Festival. It will be preceded by a 35mm showing of the 1913 version of IVANHOE and an illustrated lecture on the life and career of King Baggot by We Are Movie Geeks own Tom Stockman. The event begins at 7pm
For ticket info and details about all of this year’s St. Louis International Film Festival, visit the Cinema St. Louis site HERE
The Facebook invite for the event can be found HERE
https://www.facebook.com/events/1503897816519760
Ticket information for the event can be found HERE.
http://tributetokingbaggot.bpt.me/
The most popular film actor in the world 100 years ago was a St. Louis native. Literally the first “movie star”, King Baggot was the first actor to have his name above the title and his stardom marked the first time that audiences went to see a movie because a certain actor was in that film. Born in St. Louis in 1879 and raised in a house on Union Boulevard, King Baggot attended CBC High School and at one time worked for the St. Louis Browns in ticket sales. Baggot was tall and handsome, a blue-eyed Irish boy with a distinctive white streak through his dark hair and the subject of much adoring fan mail. It’s hard to overestimate just how popular King Baggot was in his prime. He was heralded as “King of the Movies,” “The Most Photographed Man in the World” and “The Man Whose Face Is As Familiar As The Man In The Moon.” After his acting career faded, King Baggot became a successful director for Universal Studios. Most of his films are long lost and despite his one-time fame, he is now somewhat forgotten, even here in his home town. Cinema St. Louis will shine a spotlight on the star with The King Baggot Tribute, a celebration of his career. Don’t miss it!
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