Luck of Roaring Camp (1937) User Reviews

Bret Harte classic

[bkoganbing · 5/10 · 13 September 2019]

I always feel kind of sad that a classic short story from an author like Bret Harte didn't rate one of the major studios filming it. Monogram did this adaption of Luck Of Roaring Camp and it shows in lack of production values.

There is one advantage though, they'll be no identification with any name stars so Bret Harte's characters stand or fall on what this group of unknowns make of them.

They didn't do a bad job. A pregnant woman Sheila Bromley whose husband escaped the hangman's noose arrives in Roaring Camp dying. She gives birth to a baby boy, commends his care to the men of the camp and dies. When a big strike happens afterward he earns the name Luck that the miners bestowed on him.

After a while the only one who cares about the kid and his care is young Own Davis, Jr. and traveling showgirl Joan Woodbury. Then a mysterious Hatfield like gambler Charles Brokaw shows up and he in one of those 'the Lord moves in mysterious ways' methods settles it all for the future of Luck.

For Monogram they didn't do bad in creating a realistic looking mining camp and Bret Harte's story is faithfully followed. It's one of the better products coming out of poverty row.

How the West Was Won over... By a baby!

[mark.waltz · 5/10 · 28 December 2018]

In a very exciting opening, a group of horsemen follow a speedy group of horses that dive over a cliff into the river below. It seems that the only survivor is a young woman who is about to have a baby. Dying after giving birth to a baby girl, the young woman leaves behind a legacy to the town that will certainly change its luck. In fact the men of the town who are hunting for gold nicknamed the baby Lucky. It is raised by the young Owen Davis Jr. who is busy with an independent education. Along comes shady gambler Charles Brokaw and his dancehall hostess wife, Joan Woodbury, and thanks to Brokaw's subtle villainy, a legacy is made on behalf of the precious town mascot.

This unique western shows how a tough town can change thanks to the presence of a little tot and how that baby can change how that town lives. This certainly has several elements of the traditional B western, but it is so much more. Based on a western novel and previously made as a silent movie, this poverty row programmer is an above-average western that shows the more domesticated side of an uncivilized territory. certainly, there are the traditional heroes and villains and chases and shootouts, but like MGM's "The Three Godfathers", it has a plot line that stands out above your ordinary western.

A Lucky Find

[qatmom · 7/10 · 10 January 2013]

This is not the usual clichéd western. There are no singing cowboys, no range wars, no trick riding. This is not a great movie, but of its era, it is pretty good.

(Don't miss the animated Monogram logo at the beginning of the movie. I had not seen it before in its art-deco-y futuristic glory.)

An orphaned baby changes the townsfolk of a rough mining town--all men--and some lives are changed forever. A little bit later, gold is found in the area, and people change even more, and not always for the good.

This is not the movie that will change your life, but I think you will remember it.

Irvin Willat's swansong!

[JohnHowardReid · 8/10 · 23 July 2014]

This was the final film made by Irvin Willat (1890-1976), a very highly regarded director in his day, who has slipped into an undeserved obscurity, simply because just about all of his big pictures are currently unavailable, including such huge box office and critical successes like "False Faces" with Lon Chaney, "Behind the Door" with Hobart Bosworth and Wallace Beery, "All the Brothers Were Valiant" with Lon Chaney and Billie Dove, "North of 36" with Jack Holt, Ernest Torrence, Lois Wilson and Noah Beery. Indeed "North of 36" was such a huge box office and critical success, it was soon followed by Zane Grey's "Wanderer of the Wasteland" which again brought together Jack Holt, Ernest Torrence, Lois Wilson and Noah Beery, under Willat's direction! Based on a super-popular 1909 novel that had already been filmed with great success in 1923, "The Isle of Lost Ships" (1929) was Willat's most expensive picture. It would normally have made a fortune at U.S. ticket windows, but the stock market crash turned the movie's title into a liability rather than an asset. In fact, the movie lost so much cash, it forced First National Pictures to sell out to Warner Bros.

Getting back to "The Luck of Roaring Camp", as we might expect, the Bret Harte story is directed in grand style on a fair-sized budget – even though there are no really top-level stars involved. Nevertheless, Joan Woodbury turns in a fine performance as the dancer who befriends our lucky hero (Owen Davis, Jr.). Joan is well supported by some of my favorite character players including Charles King (in a reasonably sympathetic role for once), Byron Foulger, Bob Kortman, Charles Brokaw and Ferris Taylor. Available on a very good Alpha DVD.