Ward Bond Movies

One of the few pre-1930 John Ford films currently available, the part-talkie Salute was co-directed by Ford and David Butler. George O'Brien is cast as cadet John Randall, star player for the Army college football team. His principal gridiron opponent is Navy player Paul Randall (William Janney), his own kid brother. In the days before the big Army-Navy game, John and Paul's sibling rivalry intensifies as both pay court to pretty Nancy Wayne (Helen Chandler). The film concludes with the inevitable Big Game, an expert blend of newly shot scenes and Fox Movietone newsreel footage. Stepin Fetchit, a Ford favorite, goes through his usual bizarrely racist routines as the hero's valet. The entire University of Southern California football team appears in Salute, including two strapping young players named John Wayne and Ward Bond. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The first "epic" western of the talkie era, The Big Trail is motivated by a hero's search for the murderer of his father. Twenty-three-year-old John Wayne, hitherto limited to bit parts, was thrust into the difficult leading role, a young mountaineer put in charge of a huge California-bound wagon train. Over the next several months, Wayne and his fellow pioneers face every imaginable hazard and disaster, from blistering desert heat to blinding snowstorms, negotiating steep cliffs, treacherous rivers, uncharted forests and other such natural obstacles. Meanwhile, Wayne's tentative romance with heroine Ruth Cameron (Marguerite Churchill) is continually thwarted by a charming but duplicitous gambler (Ian Keith), and all-around villain Red Flack (Tyrone Power Sr.) and his henchman Lopez (Charlie Stevens) ceaselessly plot to double-cross the other wagon-trainers for their own financial gain. The Big Trail was a box-office disappointment, a fact which some have attributed its expensive production methods. Each scene was lensed twice, once in 35-millimeter and then in the 65-mm "Fox Grandeur" wide-screen process. And then, each dialogue scene was filmed in French and German, with totally different casts. Even if Big Trail has been a big hit, it would have lost money thanks to the time-consuming shooting and reshooting of virtually every scene. Whatever the case, it was John Wayne who suffered most from the film's failure; instantly demoted to "B"-westerns, it took him nearly a decade to rebuild his stardom. Long believed lost, The Big Trail was made available for exhibition again in the early 1970s -- and in the 1990s the original widescreen version was at last restored for public view. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Truck driver Spencer Tracy claims he's "too lazy to work and too nervous to steal", but he gets mixed up in racketeering all the same. Organizing a trucking association, he lines his pockets by demanding protection money from the other drivers. Naturally, Tracy's underhanded business practices make him a pillar of the community. He plans to marry a society girl (Marguerite Churchill), who loves another. When she spurns him, Tracy arranges to have the girl kidnapped. Instead, his henchman turn on him (they've gotten a better offer) and take Tracy on a one-way ride. The first film for writer-director Rowland Brown (something of an expert on gangsters), Quick Millions is a rugged example of Spencer Tracy's earliest movie work. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Running a swift 55 minutes, Trial of Vivienne Ware packs in more sheer entertainment value than its longer, more prestigious "role model," The Trial of Mary Dugan. Joan Bennett plays the title character, a beleaguered young woman accused of murdering her nasty fiancee (Jameson Thomas). She is defended in court by hotshot lawyer John Sutherland (Donald Cook), who happens to be in love with her. Subtlety is checked at the door in the ensuing trial, which comes to a climax when the actual murderer tosses a knife at a female witness, just as she is about to make a startling revelation. ZaSu Pitts is hilarious as Miss Fairweather, a lachrymose radio personality who during her daily courtroom broadcasts seems less concerned with the progress of the trial than with Vivienne's wardrobe. Trial of Vivienne Ware was based on a novel by Kenneth M. Ellis, which had been previously adapted as a popular radio serial. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Unable to find steady work after WWI, three former flying aces -- Gibson (Richard Dix), Woody (Robert Armstrong) and Red (Joel McCrea) -- hire themselves out as stunt flyers for the movies. They find themselves employed by tyrannical director Von Furst (Erich Von Stroheim, playing what amounts to a self-caricature), who has no qualms about sending men to their deaths for the sake of "realism." Developing an esprit de corps with their fellow stunt pilots, our heroes regularly converge at the local watering hole to honor the latest casualties, wiping their names from a blackboard just as they'd done back in the Great War. When Von Furst, driven to insane jealousy by his much-abused wife Follette (Mary Astor), murders one of the pilots in cold blood, the others take a grim but thoroughly justifiable revenge. Boasting several first-rate aviation sequences, The Lost Squadron was scripted by real-life Hollywood stunt flyer Dick Grace (who also appears in the film); it was also the first RKO Radio production to carry the screen credit "executive producer, David O. Selznick." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this western, a Pony Express rider believes himself to be a Native American. The trouble begins when an Anglo outlaw begins stealing the fastest horses from the organization. The outlaw then blames the local Indians for the thefts. The gallant young rider learns of the scheme and rounds up the real culprits. Along the way he learns that he is really a white man who had been abducted and raised by the Indians. He is pretty happy because now he is free to marry the white woman he loves. The racist attitudes in this film are a reflection of its time, 1932, and of the whims of the powerful Hays Office, which censored all Hollywood films. As Hays considered miscegenation (the so-called mixing of races) immoral, the hero had to become a white man to marry a white woman. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

The title Virtue should be a good tip-off that the central character is a step below virtuous. Carole Lombard, still not established as a comedienne in 1932, plays a streetwalker seeking an escape from her sordid existence. She meets Pat O'Brien, one of the few men who doesn't expect a quick fix of satisfaction. Redeemed by his love, Lombard marries O'Brien and tries her best to bury her past. Fortunately Virtue was made before the 1934 production code, thus Carole Lombard is not subject to the censor-approved Torments of the Damned which were visited upon post-1934 movie prostitutes. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Though the story isn't much, this actioner does offer a neat behind-the-scenes look at the travails of Hollywood stuntmen as it chronicles the romance between a stunt man and an extra. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

This dark, brooding ancestor to Hang 'Em High features Buck Jones as a happy-go-lucky cowpoke who is duped by a gang of rustlers into "guarding" their camp. When the camp is raided, Jones is caught and savagely branded by a group of heavy-handed lawmen in spite of his protests of innocence. Jones survives the ordeal and seeks revenge. ~ All Movie Guide

The Wrecker is a flinty-eyed demolition engineer named Regan (Jack Holt). While he's off on another assignment, Regan's wife Mary (Genevieve Tobin) and supposed best friend Cummings (Sidney Blackmer) engage in some heavy petting. About to wash his hands of his faithless wife and his back-stabbing chum, our hero is compelled to save both their lives when they're pinned under the wreckage of a collapsed schoolhouse. George E. Stones supplies some good-natured ethnic humor as Regan's junk-dealer pal Shapiro. A plot-resolving earthquake caps this typically virile Jack Holt vehicle. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this drama, an immigrant barber becomes a US citizen and works hard to uphold his ideals of personal freedom and rights. He is a total supporter of the system, and when he is held-up, decides to reform the criminal by feeding him and finding him work. Later, a local politician attempts to tell people how to vote, but the barber is not swayed and becomes an example to others in his neighborhood. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Those who only know Pat O'Brien from his later, slightly more avuncular roles may be surprised to see him pumping out almost as much energy as his friend (and sometime co-star) James Cagney, in the lead and title role of College Coach. As James Gore, the head football coach for Calvert College, he leads his team to victory at any cost, including fair-play, decent (if not good) sportsmanship, and honesty -- he's even got his hooks into the financial end of a stadium deal. But all isn't well with those around Gore -- his best and most honorable player, Sargeant (Dick Powell, really wants to get an education while playing college ball, and finally backs out when he sees the hypocrisy around him; and his other top player, Weaver (Lyle Talbott), is a self-centered headline hound with an IQ in low double-digits who is a detriment to the team whenever he isn't scoring touchdowns. And his work seems to be unraveling when his tactics bring about a tragedy on the playing field. But it's when he discovers that his own wife (Ann Dvorak) is feeling so neglected that she's been pushed toward infidelity -- with Weaver -- that he realizes he's gone too far. With Calvert College about to lose much of what it stands for academically over the collapse of its football team, help comes from unexpected places, including a wife who still loves him and the one player Gore had who is smart enough to see the bigger picture. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide