The cast of "The Thundering Herd" is very impressive...with Randolph Scott, Buster Crabbe, Harry Carey, Barton MacLane, Noah Beery and Raymond Hatton--all very familiar western actors of the day. And, the story is based on a Zane Grey story. And, it has a salacious subplot involving a step-dad that is WAYYY too interested in his step- daughter. Yet, amazingly, it's not that interesting and you could easily do better. Now this isn't to say it's a bad film...but it should have been a lot better.
The story is about a nice guy (Scott) who is in love with a nice girl. However, her sleazy step-dad (Beery) has way too much interest in her and it's obvious the film is STRONGLY implying incest. When the nice guy goes to get his girl in order to marry her, the sleazy step-dad shoots him and beats him up! The guy is too hurt to do anything but let his friends care for him and his desire to save the girl and get revenge will have to wait until he's healed AND they've gone on the buffalo hunt. This includes a lot of nice footage of the animals at Yellowstone...otherwise the big confrontation is a fizzle and the film was quite dull. The lack of any incidental music didn't help any.
The story is about a nice guy (Scott) who is in love with a nice girl. However, her sleazy step-dad (Beery) has way too much interest in her and it's obvious the film is STRONGLY implying incest. When the nice guy goes to get his girl in order to marry her, the sleazy step-dad shoots him and beats him up! The guy is too hurt to do anything but let his friends care for him and his desire to save the girl and get revenge will have to wait until he's healed AND they've gone on the buffalo hunt. This includes a lot of nice footage of the animals at Yellowstone...otherwise the big confrontation is a fizzle and the film was quite dull. The lack of any incidental music didn't help any.