Hell's Heroes

 

(1929)
Directed by William Wyler
Written by Tom Reed, C. Garner Sullivan, from a short story by Peter B. Kyne
Starring Charles Bickford, Raymond Hatton, Fred Kohler, Fritzi Ridgeway
IMDB Entry

I  have a set definition about Christmas films: they have to be about Christmas. They can't just have a slight mention of the holiday that doesn't impact the plot.* One list of Christmas films mentioned Hell's Heroes. It is not a Christmas film, but it is a terrific but overlooked movie.

Four men enter the Western town of New Jerusalem, planning to rob the bank. They kill a teller in the robbery, and one of their group is also killed. The other three flee into the desert. The next day, they discover their horses have run off, but they do know of a water hole and head for it. When they get there, the find it has been dynamited and is dry. They also discover a wagon with a pregnant woman (Fritzi Ridgeway) inside. She gives birth, then dies, but names the three men -- Bob Sangster (Charles Bickford), Tom "Barbwire" Gibbons (Raymond Hatton), and Wild Bill Kearney (Fred Kohler) -- as godfathers and charges them to bring them to her husband.

The problem is, the husband was the man they killed in the robbery, and returning to New Jerusalem would have them arrested and probably hanged. 

Bob is all for abandoning the baby, but Tom and Bill agree to take him back to New Jerusalem. Bill is a religious man and has been wounded in the robbery and sits, unable to continue, urging the other to go to the town. Tom eventually goes off to die into the desert to have Bob finish the mission. He uses a desperate stratagem to save the baby, and reaches the town on Christmas, and dies as he brings the infant to the church.

The movie is an adaptation of the story, "Three Godfathers," which was remade as a vehicle for John Wayne in 1948**. The story here is bleaker, coming close to futility, but avoids that by the fact that they succeed in saving the infant.

I do find the technology remarkable. The talkies started only two years before, and recording equipment was big and bulky. Yet the movie was shot entirely on location. Scenes in the desert -- most of the movie -- were shot in the Mohave,  The town of Bodie, California was the location for New Jerusalem.  

Many of the shots stretched the limits of film production. I was particularly impressed by a scene where the three men were walking across the desert, the camera dollying back as they walked toward it. And there was no sign of tracks for the dolly in the sand.

Filming was brutal for the actors. Temperatures reached 110 degrees Fahrenheit and it got so hot in the enclosed camera that the cameraman fainted.

Actor Charles Bickford had come over from Broadway and does a great job portraying Bob Sangster, showing his change from a killer willing to let a baby die to a man who dies to save the baby. This movie came at the beginning of a career that lasted well into the 1960s.

William Wyler was one of Hollywood's most successful directors, helming classics like Dead End, The Letter, Mrs. Miniver, The Best Years of Our Lives, Roman Holiday, Ben-Hur, and Funny Girl.

There is a certain amount of symbolism with the three wise men and the baby, but it is only superficial and no more Christmasy than Three Men and a Baby.

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*A local comic book shop talked about the concept of a "red sky crossover," where the characters in one book will say, "Wow.  The sky is red!" because of events in the crossover, and then go ahead as though it doesn't mean anything. This is often the case with movies that mention Christmas in passing, but it doesn't make much difference to the story.

**There were two earlier versions of the story, too.