In the Days of the Thundering Herd

In the Days of the Thundering Herd (1914)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Tom Mingle (Tom Mix) works for the Pony Express and when he gets into the town of his sweetheart (Bessie Eyton) the two decide to head out West to try and get in on the gold rush. On the way out their wagon train comes under attack by Indians and most are slaughtered by Tom and the girl end back at their tribe and they must try to escape to warn the other white folks. This film clocks in just over 30-minutes and the majority of the running time features action but that really can't keep the thing totally entertaining because the editing is so poor and the direction is clearly not up to par. Director Campbell seems to have a hard time telling the story because the action is constantly going back and forth to stuff and it's easy to get lost in everything going on. At times I had to try and keep up with what was happening simply because everything just kept jumping around so bad. Mix, as you'd expect, plays the role of the good-hearted cowboy without any problem and when it comes time for the action stuff he won't let you down. Eyton is pretty good as the love interest and Red Wing does a fine job as one of the Indians. The film has a very authentic look that works in its favor because you really do get the feeling that you're in the Old West with this group. Another plus are some of the locations which help add to the film. The final ten-minutes has a massive gunfight with dozens of extras fighting it out. The original massacre was quite violent as well because of the amount of dead bodies shown killed by the Indians, which at the same time makes you wonder why they didn't kill Tom and his girl on the spot.