This touching moral lesson had been done as a silent version and in another version which is more known because of the renown of its director John Ford, but this version is equally as good as the latter version. Being an MGM version, it's a bit smaltzy as MGM movies of the thirties tended to emphasize that aspect of a story but director, Richard Boleslawski is able to keep the proceedings honest and true. Chester Morris, Lewis Stone and Walter Brennan are very good as the outlaws who ride into and rob a bank in a pious town - Chester Morris plays the "I don't give a damn" cowboy perfectly and with resonance. They make their getaway and in the desert find a baby, and the psychological issues of right and wrong as their paternal, maternal and surrogate parental instincts that exist in all of us take over. As they try to save the child, the trials and tribulations they go through bring out the best qualities of human nature in all of them in us, the audience, as well.
Review of Three Godfathers
