Custer's Last Stand (serial)
Encyclopedia
Custer's Last Stand is an independent film serial
Serial (film)
Serials, more specifically known as Movie serials, Film serials or Chapter plays, were short subjects originally shown in theaters in conjunction with a feature film. They were related to pulp magazine serialized fiction...

 based on the historical Custer's Last Stand at the Little Bighorn River
Little Bighorn River
The Little Bighorn River is a tributary of the Bighorn River in the United States in the states of Wyoming and Montana. The Battle of the Little Bighorn was fought on its banks in 1876, as well as the Battle of Crow Agency in 1887....

.

It was produced by the Poverty Row
Poverty Row
Poverty Row is a slang term used in Hollywood from the late silent period through the mid-fifties to refer to a variety of small and mostly short-lived B movie studios...

 studio Stage & Screen Productions, which went bust shortly afterwards as a victim of the Great Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...

. This serial stars many famous and popular B-Western actors as well as silent serial star Helen Gibson
Helen Gibson
Helen Gibson was an American film actress, vaudeville performer, radio performer, film producer, trick rider and rodeo performer; and is considered to be the first American professional stunt woman.- Rodeo riding :...

.

In April of the same year it was edited into an 84-minute feature film, which was released under the same name.

Plot overview

The serial follows multiple plot threads, centering on a Medicine Arrow taken in battle and a secret gold mine, in the lead up to the Battle of Little Big Horn.

Cast

  • Rex Lease
    Rex Lease
    Rex Lloyd Lease was an American actor. He appeared in over 300 films, mainly in westerns. Lease was accused in 1930 by Vivian Duncan of the Duncan Sisters for assault...

     as Kit Cardigan and his father John C. Cardigan
  • Lona Andre
    Lona Andre
    Lona Andre was an American film actress.Born Launa Anderson in Nashville, Tennessee, Andre attracted attention with her first films in Hollywood and was named as one of the WAMPAS Baby Stars of 1932. After winning the Paramount Panther Woman Contest, she was signed to a movie contract by...

     as Belle Meade
  • William Farnum
    William Farnum
    William Farnum was a major movie actor. One of three brothers, Farnum grew up in a family of actors. He made his acting debut at the age of ten in Richmond, Virginia in a production of Julius Caesar, with Edwin Booth playing the title character...

     as James Fitzpatrick
  • Ruth Mix
    Ruth Mix
    Nadine Ruth Mix was the daughter of western film star Tom Mix, and a B-movie actress during the 1930s.Born in Dewey, Oklahoma, to Tom and Olive Stokes Mix, she started her acting career following in her fathers footsteps. In the mid-1920s she starred in several silent films...

     as Elizabeth Custer
  • Jack Mulhall
    Jack Mulhall
    Jack Mulhall, born John Joseph Francis Mulhall, was a film actor since the silent film era and appeared in over 430 films....

     as Lieutenant Cook
  • Nancy Caswell as Barbara Trent
  • George Chesebro
    George Chesebro
    George Chesebro was an American film actor. He appeared in over 400 films between 1915 and 1954, beginning in two reelers starring Texas Guinan.He was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota and died in Los Angeles, California....

     as Lieutenant Frank Roberts
  • Dorothy Gulliver
    Dorothy Gulliver
    Dorothy Kathleen Gulliver was an early silent film star, and one of the few to make a successful transition with the advent of "talkies", when films began using sound...

     as Red Fawn
  • Frank McGlynn Jr. as General George A. Custer
    George Armstrong Custer
    George Armstrong Custer was a United States Army officer and cavalry commander in the American Civil War and the Indian Wars. Raised in Michigan and Ohio, Custer was admitted to West Point in 1858, where he graduated last in his class...

  • Helen Gibson
    Helen Gibson
    Helen Gibson was an American film actress, vaudeville performer, radio performer, film producer, trick rider and rodeo performer; and is considered to be the first American professional stunt woman.- Rodeo riding :...

     as Calamity Jane
    Calamity Jane
    Martha Jane Cannary Burke , better known as Calamity Jane, was an American frontierswoman, and professional scout best known for her claim of being an acquaintance of Wild Bill Hickok, but also for having gained fame fighting Native Americans...

  • Josef Swickard
    Josef Swickard
    Josef Swickard was a German-born veteran stage and screen character actor, who had toured with stock companies in Europe, South Africa, and South America.-Career:...

     as Major Henry Trent, MD
  • Chief Thundercloud
    Chief Thundercloud
    Chief Thundercloud, was an American character actor in westerns.Information about Thundercloud is vague...

     as Young Wolf
  • Allen Greer as Wild Bill Hickok
    Wild Bill Hickok
    James Butler Hickok , better known as Wild Bill Hickok, was a folk hero of the American Old West. His skills as a gunfighter and scout, along with his reputation as a lawman, provided the basis for his fame, although some of his exploits are fictionalized.Hickok came to the West as a stagecoach...

  • High Eagle as Crazy Horse
    Crazy Horse
    Crazy Horse was a Native American war leader of the Oglala Lakota. He took up arms against the U.S...

  • Howling Wolf as Sitting Bull
    Sitting Bull
    Sitting Bull Sitting Bull Sitting Bull (Lakota: Tȟatȟáŋka Íyotake (in Standard Lakota Orthography), also nicknamed Slon-he or "Slow"; (c. 1831 – December 15, 1890) was a Hunkpapa Lakota Sioux holy man who led his people as a tribal chief during years of resistance to United States government policies...


Production

Commenting on the plot, Cline notes that this serial contains several historical characters in a purely fictitious setting. "The story rambled through a series of loosely connected plots and sub plots" leading to Little Big Horn.

Stunts

  • Yakima Canutt
    Yakima Canutt
    Yakima Canutt , also known as Yak Canutt, was an American rodeo rider, actor, stuntman and action director.-Biography:...

  • Ken Cooper
  • Carl Mathews
  • Mabel Strickland (riding double)
  • Wally West

Theatrical

Custer's Last Stand was well received by action fans, regardless of its historical inaccuracies.

Chapter titles

  1. Perils of the Plains
  2. Thundering Hoofs [sic
    Sic
    Sic—generally inside square brackets, [sic], and occasionally parentheses, —when added just after a quote or reprinted text, indicates the passage appears exactly as in the original source...

    ]
  3. Fires of Vengeance
  4. The Ghost Dancers
  5. Trapped
  6. Human Wolves
  7. Demons of Disaster
  8. White Treachery
  9. Circle of Death
  10. Flaming Arrow
  11. Warpath
  12. Firing Squad
  13. Red Panthers
  14. Custer's Last Ride
  15. The Last Stand

Source:
The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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