The Country Beyond
Cast & Crew
Eugene Forde
Rochelle Hudson
Paul Kelly
Robert Kent
Alan Hale
Alan Dinehart
Film Details
Technical Specs
Synopsis
Sergeant Cassidy, of the Canadian Mounted Police, is not pleased when his commanding officer, Inspector Reed, orders him to train a new arrival, Corporal Robert King, the commissioner's son, who has a reputation as "the Beau Brummel of Ottawa." Cassidy gives King pointers concerning the sport of "balaklava melee," in which two mounties on horses face off against one another to retrieve the plume on the helmet of the other. King proceeds to throw Cassidy off his horse and get his plume, and then sends Cassidy a newspaper clipping about his exploits as the balaklava melee champ of Ottawa. After King later mocks and taunts Cassidy, Cassidy orders King to fight and knocks him down. Impressed with Cassidy, King tears up a clipping in his scrapbook which shows him as the mounted police boxing champ. When Reed assigns Cassidy to search for furs stolen from a trading post in an incident in which a watchman was killed by a dog, King convinces Reed to allow him to go along, even though Cassidy objects. Reed wants Cassidy to search the lodge belonging to Jim Alison, whose daughter Jean earlier rebuffed King's attempted flirtation. When Cassidy and King arrive at the lodge, Alison's partner, Ray Jennings, orders his men to hide the stolen furs in the root cellar. After Jennings leaves in a plane, Cassidy notices Jean's dog Buck, who earlier attacked King, sniffing at a spot in the root cellar, while King is preoccupied apologizing to Jean for the search. Cassidy warns King that duty and a pretty girl do not mix, and then locates a hidden door in the floor of the cellar. They find the furs and arrest Alison, who confesses to his daughter in private that he has been involved in smuggling furs across the border to avoid paying taxes on them; however, he says he did not know that the furs were stolen and thinks that Jennings also may not have known. He convinces Jean to help him escape, so that he can meet Jennings at the cabin of their compatriot Donaldson and find out how much Jennings knows. Jean diverts King's attention with a kiss, and with the help of their Chinese cook, she and her father escape on Cassidy and King's sled. After Alison and Jean split up, Cassidy sends King to follow Jean while he hunts for Alison. King finds Jean by a campfire, and she becomes annoyed when he makes friends with Buck. After he goes to sleep, Jean tries to sneak off with Buck, but King has tied a rope to Buck and attached it around his own wrist. He carries Jean back and after handcuffing her to him, makes Buck sleep between them. When Alison finds bales of stolen fur at Donaldson's cabin, Jennings sicks his vicious dog Wolf on him, and then leaves Alison to die as he and Donaldson search for Jean to kill her. When King becomes lost, Jean refuses to help, but after he protects her from a snow slide and injures his leg, she gets him to a cabin and sets the leg in splints. King has Buck sniff the scarf that Cassidy gave him and sends the dog to find Cassidy. When Jennings and Donaldson come across Buck, Jennings fires at him and misses. They then follow Buck's tracks hoping to find Jean. After King tells Jean about the murder, Jean surmises that Wolf must have killed the watchman. Worried about her father, King urges her to warn him, but just then, they hear Jennings and Donaldson approach. When Jennings enters, Jean gets his gun. As King then shoots Donaldson, Wolf attacks King, and Jennings retrieves his gun from Jean. Buck, whose mate had earlier been killed by Wolf, jumps in the window, and Wolf releases King to fight him. Cassidy, who has followed Buck back, shoots Jennings after he fires first. Buck chases Wolf into the wilderness, while Cassidy reports that Alison is alright and admits that he was wrong about duty and women never mixing.
Director
Eugene Forde
Cast
Rochelle Hudson
Paul Kelly
Robert Kent
Alan Hale
Alan Dinehart
Andrew Tombes
Claudia Coleman
Matt Mchugh
Paul Mcvey
Holmes Herbert
Buck
Prince
Chester Gan
Creighton Hale
Jack Mulhall
Pat O'malley
Harry Strang
Chief Thunderbird
Charley Stevens
Niles Welch
Landers Stevens
Lew Harvey
George H. Reed
Fred Walton
Crew
Fred Allen
Tom Barry
Lou Breslow
Cappy
Bruce Carruthers
Lou Carter
Adele Comandini
Duncan Cramer
George Fitzharris
Fritzi
Kenny Green
Eugene Grossman
Harry Johannson
Samuel Kaylin
William Lambert
Harry M. Leonard
Barney Mcgill
Luis Molina
Aaron Rosenberg
Raymond Schrock
Carl Stecker
Lamar Trotti
Jack Weatherwax
William Whitley
Sol M. Wurtzel
Film Details
Technical Specs
Quotes
Trivia
Notes
The opening title card reads "James Oliver Curwood's The Country Beyond." The story, which originally appeared in Cosmopolitan in July 1921, was the first in a series of nine related stories published in succeeding issues through March 1922. These stories were collected in the volume The Country Beyond. The screen credits refer to the work by Curwood as a novel. According to news items, snow scenes were shot in Truckee, CA and some other scenes were shot in Ventura and near Chatsworth, CA. According to the pressbook, Dr. Roy Burdick was with the troupe at Truckee. This was Robert Kent's first film in which he used that name; previously, he appeared under his given name, Douglas Blackley. According to a Daily Variety news item, Rita Cansino, later known as Rita Hayworth, was cast in the female lead after Rochelle Hudson, who originally had the role, was moved to Ramona (see below). Hudson subsequently did not play in Ramona and returned to play the lead in this film. George Kirby is listed as a cast member in Hollywood Reporter production charts; his participation in the final film has not been verified. In 1926, Fox produced a film based on the same source, which was directed by Irving Cummings and starred Olive Borden and Ralph Graves (see AFI Catalog of Feature Films, 1921-30; F2.1029); however, the plot of that film bears little resemblance to that of the 1936 version.
