Devil's Saddle Legion (Warner Bros.) (1937)

ANNE GETS BIG ROLE OUTDOORS Heroines ordinarily don’t have much of an opportunity to show their stuff in Western movies, histrionically speaking, but it seems Anne Nagel’s part opposite Dick Foran in Warner Bros.’ action flicker, ‘‘The Devil’s Saddle Legion,’’ breaks the jinx. According to Director Bobby Connolly, it’s the best feminine part in a Western he’s ever encountered. Before this she has been leading lady in more sophisticated types of dramas. ‘‘The Devil’s Saddle Legion’’ comes to the Strand Theatre next Friday. MORE HITS FO FORAN’S VOICE M. K. Jerome and Jack Scholl, authors of that tremendous song hit of a few months ago, ‘‘My Little Buckaroo,’’ which was sung by Dick Foran in the Warner Bros. Western movie, ‘‘ Cherokee Strip,’’ composed three songs for Dick’s current picture, ‘‘The Devil’s Saddle Legion,’’ which is now at the Strand Theatre. The ballads are ‘‘ Ridin’ To My Home In Texas,’’? ‘‘God’s Country’? and ‘‘When Moonlight. Is Riding The Range.’’ Dick Foran recently completed a singing engagement with Burns & Allen. THE STORY In the Indian Territory Red Frayne (George Chesebro) is building a dam across the Red River with prison labor. To get prisoners for the building of the dam he has Sheriff Duke Gorman (Raphael Bennett) picking up anybody who looks husky, on trumped-up charges. It’s murder they unjustly charge against Tal Holladay (Dick Foran) and he is sentenced to spend ten years at hard labor. From other prisoners he learns that one of the projects, when and if the dam is completed, is to throw his father’s ranch into the Indian Territory by diverting the wandering bed of the Red River and he also gets the shocking news that his father has been ambushed and murdered. Meanwhile he falls in love with Karan Ordley (Anne Nagel) and she with him, although he thinks her father (Gordon Hart) is trying to gain control of his father’s property. Neither Karan nor her father realizes why Tal, who goes under the name of Smith, seems hostile toward them, but the girl has him assigned to help her ‘‘gentle’’ a horse. This enables him to steal pistols and smuggle them into the prison, and later stage a revolt. With five comrades he escapes and these become known as the ‘‘Devil’s Saddle Legion,’’ branded outlaws with prices on every head. The band dedicates its efforts to finding the murderer of Tal’s father, saving the ranch, and preventing the completion of the dam which would rob Texas and many property owners of their land by putting it officially into the lawless ‘“self-governed’’ Territory. Finally, when John W. Logan, (Walter Young), Secretary of the Interior, comes to establish the boundary officially in the name ef the U. S. Government, he is about to make the decision in favor of the crooks, whom he thinks honest and upright citizens. Tai tries to get to Logan and explain the crookedness of the situation;vat he is nabbed and a lynching bee is started. Meanwhile a new ‘omber of his band turns out to be United States wo. ew ey. ee ee ats Pane ae ee Te a a i a Marsnal 1.0 nagebeen—workitig mer covers ~e28ea8ports in Yavor of Tal. The gang of crooks try to escape over the dam, but they are caught there by the explosion which wrecks the structure. Logan establishes the boundary where it rightfully belongs, Tal gets his ranch which is now officially in Texas — and he gets Karan and the friendship of her father. His ‘‘Devil’s Saddle Legion,’’ instead of being hung for outlaws are honored as upholders of the law in a lawless land. CAST OF CHARACTERS El AE OM EGOY (csp 5 A ees ehh nk ON Dick Foran ROOT ON CY oe BEC crotiiys eas we tk EN Anne Nagel Hub: Ordley 0c. aaige Waschan tons | Sane veei sic ao ere: Cr aera eee Willard Parker Chris DL ONAON AG Astr ee Fe se at Granville Owen Chip Carters oie ah ts Re ese eae eee Carlyle Moore, Jr. i aie SAY 11-7) Sea ae Mi a OBEN Rr is Gordon Hart UEC Boh eae Wien CR ae eee Max Hoffman, Jr. Pewee Kapha oe DUE psn ae Nh. ave Ri Soh gd OEE ea at ae Glen Strange Spooks Eine cen ane tet eee Nee GEA pte ger ee ea oan John ‘‘Skins’? Miller EUG ee de nig Tage eg ke ee Te Ernie Stanton PCO DE elo cagd lee Se gah oa RR BN Frank Orth TRUS OW (cia eA ie iy Pee arate pe ee Jack Mower Spane matt taa se ae Maine opt Meth g hit hi) AUN Ge ie ee ee Pk ee Milt Kibbee bali: a2 Sareea cries con aS Boat ee se woe rar ag tM ee George Chesebro John ECU Nar Se Gx PEON OMT BOR a Re fa Le Walter Young Caliope set Gleatee topeepn wh nmiGe ate nee eGR a ee Charles LeMoyne NET MAG OTIROM cs. co oe ee ee Raphael Bennett Choctaw soc Cid a Pea CL > OEE AEN Serr on en ran Bia Dae on Dick Botiller HAR EALEND seh nea eg OU ey a Alan Gregg BORVANG Et) oN apd Ants STG Se eR Bud Osborne PRODUCTION STAFF Director seh aey evar Meme eH aan ROSE a DAG en A mete Ee Bobby Connolly Story and Screen Play PPE ated eR ae et et Ed. Earl Repp Photography DY 5 CuSO Se oe RRS Ted McCord, A. S.C. BNE TON oi Raa eee tO is NA rae gee Frank MaGee Art Director Eidtecanaaie estes ce hae Me Ted Smith Musie and Lyrics by. 1. K,. Jerome and Jack Scholl Gowns bY...-2........ BERN saeans Cire se Scans RM ea ae eet Be ened Milo Anderson OFFICIAL BILLING Warner Bros. 40% Pictures, Ine. present 5% THE DEVIL’S SADDLE LEGION 100% with : DICK FORAN 75% (The Singing Cowboy) 10% and ANNE NAGEL 40% * * * Directed by Bobby Connolly 20% * * * Story and Screen Play by Ed. Earl Repp 5% %* * * A Warner Bros. Picture 5% rage Two Pe Peli. 2 hl UU . : J, HARD RIDERS Grizzled Cowboys Artists NOT ALWAYS IN WESTERNS Dick Foran has learned — and passes on the information that a movie cowboy spends only about a third of his working time playing in Western movies. Two-thirds of the time he is doing dangerous riding scenes in other types of pictures, such as period films, in which he’s often a knight in armor! They may be unsophisticated and untutored sons of the plains when they first come off the Montana, Wyoming, Arizona and Utah ranges, says Dick — but they’re cosmopolitans with plenty of general knowledge before they spend a four-year term in pictures. They learn history and customs of foreign lands and past ages. They study anthropology while being made up as Tartars of the steppes, Cossacks, Uhlans, Arabs, Gauchos, Mongols — as any and all of the races throughout history and geography who bestride horses! In military pictures they learn formation riding, drills, and whatnot, authentic military routines of the cavalry of many nations and periods. In short, during their film careers they tour the world and time on horseback. Foran himself, although called Warner Bros.’ Singing Cowboy star, has had no such variety of experience. A radio favorite and husky football packer, he became a Western star because experience on an Arizona ranch had given him a bit of riding, shooting and roping prowess, Then he clicked in a Western following his great performance in the drama, ‘‘ Petrified Forest.’’ __He_has_eontinned to pley dramas, but confesses a liking for the Westerns in which he and _ his horse ‘‘Smoky’’ share top honors. He has done about a dozen Westerns for Warner Bros., with increasing success; between them he steps into such roles as that he played in ‘‘ Black Legion,’’ the sympathetic hero. In all recent Westerns he has introduced songs written especially for his pictures by M. K. Jerome and Jack Scholl. Many of these, such as ‘‘My Little Buckaroo,’’ have scored notable hits. Currently Dick is back on the air in a popular radio program, while as busy as ever at his studio. Latest of his films is ‘‘The Devil’s Saddle Legion,’’ in which pretty Anne Nagel plays opposite. Bobby Connolly directed this picture, which will come to the Strand Theatre next Friday. At Heart Says Dick Foran Airy Life of Range Riders Conducive To Art Explains Star of “Devil’s Saddle Legion” They’re a hard-bitten saddle-leather-tanned erew, but at heart they’re poets and musicians! That’s Dick Foran’s theory and this Princeton grad and radio baritone knows many a cowboy! “One of the toughest buckaroos I know is a poet, musician, song writer,’’ says Dick. ‘‘That’s Curley Fletcher, who wrote ‘Strawberry Roan’ and other range ditties. He worked in my latest picture, ‘The Devil’s Saddle Legion.’ “*It’s the cowboy’s environment AUTHOR REPP ADVISES WRITERS Writing action thrillers for the movies is a cinch, according to Author Ed. Earl Repp. Just the same, there are tricks to the trade. Repp, who knows his West first-hand, and who has written plenty of magazine fiction about it and several plays in addition to scenarios, knows them all. “‘Know your stuff and your exact locale, whether or not an exact locale is specified in the ‘script,’ advises Repp. ‘‘For example, I am pretty familiar with the locale and times of the Oklahoma land rush, and the whole history of the development of the Indian Territory into a state. ‘*T have sold a number of stories about it. Knowing the locale and the character-types facilitates writing about them, and makes for better stories. : ““Wor example, I wrote one not long ago based on the land rush which settled the so-called ‘Cherokee Strip.’ Dick Foran starred in it. Now he has just finished another of my yarns, his latest at Warner Bros. — ‘The Devil’s Sad 1 I + 4 —ile Legion --_cominge-to—the-Sirand——— Theatre on Friday. ‘‘That also concerns itself with the Indian Territory locale; this time revolving around the interesting situation created by the part of the Territory where the selfgoverning experiment was made, and the Red River kept changing the boundary between the Territory and the State of Texas.’’ PRESENT FOR STAR Never a Western movie does Dick Foran make that he doesn’t accumulate some souvenirs, the latest is a big turquoise ring of hand-made Navajo craft, a present from an Indian in the cast of his latest Warner Bros. film, ‘‘The Devil’s Saddle Legion,’’ which which comes to the Strand Theatre on Friday. po MASA) Mat No. 201 —20c TWO-FISTED ACTION is in store for those who are seeing the ‘‘ Devil’s Saddle Legion’? at the 2....:...00002. this week. Dick Foran, who also sings three hit numbers in the film, is shown grappling with a trio of his enemies. Jack Scholl and M. K. Jerome, authors of ‘My Little Buckaroo,’’ another Singing Cowboy tune, wrote the songs. which makes him a poet, an artist, a sculptor and so on — and above all, I believe, a musician and an appreciator of music. That’s why there are so many fine cowboy ditties out, actually written by men who have ridden the range. That, too, explains the work of famous cowboy artists such as Russell, and books by Will James, Owen Wister and their sort. The cowboy, like the Indian, is close to nature and with words, pencil and music he records the feeling of his beloved environment. ‘*Another thing — only an artist’s disregard for money, and a nature lover’s feeling for the sort of life a cowboy leads could recompense a great number of the young Americans who take a pittance in wage and usually a pretty poor ‘keep’ for so much hard work. They ’re cowboys because they love being cowboys, not because there’s money or a future in it. ‘In my pictures I try to use only the real cowboys. Hollywood has offered the veteran cowboy who has lost his range — and it’s vanishing fast — a way of reliving past glories, and following his hobbies of music, art, writing; of keeping horses, and on location trips, riding the range again. It has rescued some of his kind from dude ranches when wv angling dudes beeame too onerous. And it has offered a bertix for some of the boys who have been pretty wadlyv broken up physically in rodeo work,’’ Anne Nagel plays opposite Foran in ‘The Devil’s Saddle Legion,’’ a story of the old Indian _ Territory, which comes to the Strand Theatre next Friday. It was directed by Bobby Connolly from a screen play by Ed. Earl Repp. FORAN’S REPERTOIRE Dick Foran, Warner Bros. husky red-headed singing cowboy, knows 467 cowboy songs. Hold on — pardon! The number is now 470 as he sings three new ones written especially for his current picture, . ‘‘The Devil’s Saddie Legion,’’ by M. K. Jerome aad Jack Scholl. The picture comes to the Strand Theatre next Friday. MONOCLED COWBOY! Ernie Stanton, who made such a hit with a one-line speech in “‘The Prince and the Pauper’’— “* fe’g a busy bloke, ain’t ’e??? — is wearing a monocle again. This time it’s for an interesting comedy part in Dick Foran’s newest Western, ‘‘The Devil’s Saddle Legion,’’ a Warner Bros. movie which comes next Friday to the Strand Theatre. PAINTS BRONC BUCKS Director Bobby Connolly is particularly proud of the bucking brone painted on the back of his canvas chair by the cowboy artist, Buff Stringer. The artist was a member of the east of ‘The Devil’s Saddle Legion,’’ Dick Foran’s latest for Warner Bros. — and the first Western that Con— nolly, formerly a dance director, ever megaphoned. It is now on the screen at the Strand Theatre.