This Technicolor paean to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police - a staple subject of Hollywood movies dating back to the silent era - was promoted by Warner Bros. as "the first color epic of the Mounties." An adaptation of the 1930 novel of the same name by American writer William Byron Mowery (whose 1929 adventure The Silver Hawk served as the inspiration for Columbia's 1937 serial The Mysterious Pilot, which made a matinee star of real life aviator Frank Hawk), Heart of the North (1938) features Dick Foran as a timberline constable whose duty and personal life are adversely effected when he falls for the daughter (Gloria Dickson) of a fur trapper (Russell Simpson) falsely accused by thieves of the murder of a fellow Mountie (Patrick Knowles). Shot on location against the backdrop of Big Bear Lake in the San Bernardino National Forest (a cost-effective substitute for the Great White North), this Lewis Seiler-directed "northern" benefits from a high level of production value not often afforded a Hollywood western. Critics of the day poked fun at the plot's tear-jerking inclusion of a plucky orphan child (Janet Chapman) and a dog but responded favorably to Seiler's marshalling of the action sequences and Warners' atypical employment of Technicolor for a non-musical; writing for The New York Times, Frank S. Nugent joked "Technicolor always gets its man." Adding further value to the film are characteristically larger-than-life supporting performances by Allen Jenkins and real life Canadian Joe Sawyer.

By Richard Harland Smith