JohnHowardReid Review of Heritage of the Desert

Heritage of the Desert (1932)

A first-class first for Henry Hathaway!

[7/10 · 21 July 2014]

Henry Hathaway's first film as a full-fledged director is not only very competently made but exhibits most of the traits that Hathaway was to employ again and again in his lengthy Hollywood career, namely his outstanding use of real locations to bring the riveting story and its players realistically into focus and to allow actors to use their own skills to make the characters they portray not only grippingly forceful but utterly believable. Needless to say, these admirable traits are wasted on people like Randolph Scott who rely on the director not only to give them their cues but a whole lot of clues as to how they should portray their screen characters. Admittedly, although forced to rely on his own talents, Scott is not too bad. He does nothing to make his character really believable, but he does project a nice guy image quite well, whereas heroine Sally Blane does considerably less – and she'd been acting in movies since 1917, whereas Randy was a comparative newcomer who started in 1928. It's left to the support case, particularly J. Farrell MacDonald in a major role for once and David Landau as a really villainous villain – and not to forget Guinn "Big Boy" Williams as one of the villain's chief henchmen – to add color and depth to their portrayals. And of course, director Hathaway comes into his own in the vigorously staged action sequences. Available on a quite watchable Alpha DVD.