Hells Heroes (1930)

[cigar joe]

This is William Wyler's version of John Ford's two silent films 1919's Marked Men and 1926's Three Bad Men, (Marked Men hasn't survived), unfortunately I caught this one at 3:30 AM from the point where they find the woman and the wagon in the desert, too bad because as one poster on Imdb puts it.....

"It's filled with those two second throwaways that tell so much about the characters but do nothing to advance the plot. Such as when the gang leans on the teller's counter, one cowboy's boot scuffs at the bottom for a bar rail. At the saloon, a short skirted woman dances for the patrons, a low angle shot gives a glimpse of garter. The sheriff, seated nearby, drops something and pretends to pick it up. He stares lecherously at the dancing knees. Yet, a moment later, when Bickford invites him to drink, the sheriff's back on his moral high horse. Bickford bites and slaps the girl, after all this is pre-code."

....sounds pretty good the beginning and end are also shot in real life ghost town Bodie, California its still exists though you can see that more of it was around in 1926.

It stars Charles Bickford as Robert 'Bob' Sangster, Raymond Hatton as Thomas 'Barbwire' / 'Tom' Gibbons, and Fred Kohler as William 'Wild Bill' Kearney who looks remarkably like Alan Hale Jr.    Fritzi Ridgeway is Mrs. Frank Edwards, the mother, in this version the father pulled a gun during the robbery at the bank and Barbwire & Wild Bill shot him down. This version has all three "heroes" dead at the end. (spoiler) Bickford on his last legs makes it to a poisoned water hole and decides after some deliberation to drink his fill though it means death) so he can get the baby to the town. He enters the town church during Christmas Morning services and drops dead in the aisle.

So now I've seen three of four versions that I know of, each has its own style and different takes on a similar story of personal sacrifice. I recomend you try and see all three, I'll be sure to try and catch the beginning of this one again next time round.

[stanton]

Not Three Bad Men, but it's Three Godfathers (1948) you are talking about.

Hell's Heroes is one I would like to see.

[cigar joe]

Both they are all the same premise Three Bad Men doesn't have the mother/baby scenario it has the young lovers, Three Godfathers (1948) was Fords third go around for this film, I'm not sure about Marked Men and its synopsis if it was a baby or the young lovers, not much info on line it had Harry Carey though. I guess from surfing I found there was a 1916 version called "Three Godfathers" with Carey also that is lost.