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The Western adventure Bad Lands (1939) is one of many films inspired directly or indirectly by the British silent Lost Patrol (1929), which was in turn based on Philip MacDonald's novel Patrol. The most celebrated remake was John Ford's The Lost Patrol (1934); other reworkings of the story include Trinadtsat (1937), Bataan (1943), Sahara (1943), Last of the Comanches (1953) and Chato's Land (1972).
Bad Lands sets the well-worn plot in the Arizona desert in 1875. Robert Barrat, a prolific stage, screen and television actor in one of his few starring roles, plays a sheriff who leads a posse in search of a killer and sees his men killed off one by one by Apaches until he is the only survivor. Screenwriter Clarence Upson Young adds a subplot involving a coveted vein of silver ore.
The cast includes Francis Ford, the older brother of director John Ford; and Noah Beery, Jr., son of one prominent actor (Noah, Sr.) and nephew of another (Wallace). Beery had a long career in films before moving on to television, where he was best known as James Garner's father in the series The Rockford Files. Bad Lands also has future star John Payne, then billed as Jack Payne, in a small role as a character called "Apache Jack."
Producer: Robert Sisk
Director: Lew Landers
Screenplay: Clarence Upson Young
Cinematography: Frank Redman
Original Music: Roy Webb
Editing: George Hively
Principal Cast: Robert Barrat (Sheriff Bill Cummings), Addison Richards (Rayburn), Andy Clyde (Henry Cluff), Guinn "Big Boy" Williams (Billy Sweet), Francis Ford (Charlie Garth), Noah Beery, Jr. (Chick Lyman).
BW-71m.
by Roger Fristoe
 
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Silent Sunday Nights - November Schedule
Among the featured films this month are The Battle of the Sexes (1928) in which a golddigger and her boyfriend try to con an older businessman plus seven more treats from the silent era.
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