The movie is basically an excellent B-Western masquerading as a big studio A-production. Two big clues are the actors playing Scott's sidekick, George "Gabby" Hayes (in his final movie role), and its emblematic "brain heavy," Victor Jory. The ol' Gabberoo was the go-to guy every B-Western star coveted (Walter Brennan owned that spot in A Westerns), while Jory often played the primary, more intellectual villain in B-Westerns, particularly those of William "Hopalong Cassidy" Boyd, movies that initially co-starred Hayes. Both actors are delightful to watch.

Cinecolor, meanwhile, was a popular, less expensive alternative to three-strip Technicolor during 1945-52, before the advent of more practical Eastman Color. Popular especially with B-Westerns, the bi-pack color process produced vibrant reds, blues, and flesh tones, while muting other colors such as green and purple, and generally giving everything a rustic brown ambience. Few Cinecolor titles have been properly restored, so modern audiences rarely have had the opportunity to see just how effective it could be. The efforts of the Germans (and some Americans) involved in the restoration of The Cariboo Trail should be justly proud, as the presentation looks wonderful, and a long, very technical featurette on this restoration shows just how much work was involved.

Montana ranchers Jim Redfern (Randolph Scott), Mike Evans (Bill Williams), and Chinese cook Ling (Lee Tung Foo) have driven their herd of steers from Montana into British Columbia. Both and Jim and Mike are anxious to try their luck panning for gold, but Jim sees this as a secondary goal, while Mike is stricken with gold fever, and resentful of Jim's less glamorous ambitions.

The trio reaches a toll bridge, actually a moneymaking scam operated by land baron (not cattle king, as described on the packaging) Frank Walsh (Victor Jory), who owns nearly the entirety of Carson Creek, a gold mining town near the Chilcotin. Ignoring henchmen Murphy (Douglas Kennedy) and Miller (Jim Davis), Jim and Mike drive their cattle over the bridge without paying, and Walsh's men can do little but get out of the way. Soon after Jim and the others join forces with old prospector Grizzly ("Gabby" Hayes), Walsh has his men stampede the cattle while Jim, Mike, Ling, and Grizzly are asleep. In a very effective scene, Jim has no choice but to amputate Mike's trampled left arm.

They manage to get Mike to a doctor in Carson Creek, but an unforgiving Mike blames Jim for making him a "cripple." Their cattle and money gone, Jim, Grizzly, and Ling must start over, with Walsh and his men doing everything possible to stop these determined upstarts.

The Cariboo Trail's deviation from classical B-Westerns is to disfigure the juvenile lead (Mike), who wallows in self-pity following his life-changing injury, drinking heavily, spurning the efforts of saloon owner (and Jim's love interest) Francie (Karin Booth) to help him, and eventually going to work for Walsh. Mike finds Walsh morally reprehensible but luckless Mike's self-esteem is too low to care very much.

The real delights of The Cariboo Trail are, however, the performances of Hayes and Jory. A versatile actor (quite intelligent and well-groomed in real life), Hayes struck gold and screen immortality when he began playing Windy Halliday in the early Hopalong Cassidy films (a character that gradually evolved over the first four or five movies). He left that series and moved to Republic Pictures where, as "Gabby" Whitaker, he played the grizzled, toothless sidekick of Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, and Wild Bill Elliott, as well as in some of John Wayne's bigger-scale Westerns from the period (e.g., Tall in the Saddle, like The Cariboo Trail directed by Edwin L. Marin).

After this film Hayes left pictures to star in TV's The Gabby Hayes Show, which he hosted (perpetually whittling away on a piece of wood on a front porch) episodes in which he did not otherwise appear. He retired for good in 1957, managed a small apartment building in North Hollywood, and died at 83 in 1969.

Jory, meanwhile, is just right as the Trumpian Walsh, a self-absorbed land baron certain his wealth and cocky charm can win over Francie, even though she openly loathes him. Others do his dirty work, while Walsh is amusingly spineless when personally confronted. Jory strikes exactly the right notes, giving the part a relaxed, underplayed confidence. He freely alternated between big movies (e.g., Gone with the Wind) and low-budget second features, but unlike, say, John Carradine and J. Carrol Naish, whose roles in cheap movies eventually trapped them for the most part in such films, Jory's career never suffered. He usually played smart heavies like Walsh, though in one of the craziest bits of casting, Jory played Kip, the romantic male lead, in the notorious Cat-Women of the Moon (1953). He worked steadily until shortly before his death in 1982.

Though partly shot on location, The Cariboo Trail straddles the very different worlds of A- and B-Westerns budget-wise, which while obviously bigger than the average B, still is very clearly limited. Many exteriors are obviously cramped soundstage sets, often with painted backdrops in which the players leave shadows on the "sky" behind them. Nevertheless, this is a crackling modest Western with much to like.

Video & Audio

The Cariboo Trail, along Kino's simultaneous release of another Randolph Scott Western restored by the same folks, Canadian Pacific, is by far the best Cinecolor has ever look. It may not quite have the full-bodied richness of Technicolor's three-strip process, but it's startlingly good, this despite the many challenges the restoration team faced (bad splices, missing and damaged frames, etc.). The 2.0 DTS-HD Master Audio (English mono) audio is also excellent, and the disc is region A encoded.

Extra Features

Supplements include the aforementioned "Recombining and Restoring Two-Strip Cinecolor Components," which runs nearly half and hour and goes into impressively exhaustive detail with many before and after, side-by-side comparisons. (There're also a lot of text pages, suggesting this was adapted from a German featurette.) Also included is an abridged 8mm version of the film, silent with English subtitles, and a trailer.

Parting Thoughts

Very entertaining and great looking besides, The Cariboo Trail is Highly Recommended.

Stuart Galbraith IV is the Kyoto-based film historian largely absent from reviewing these days while he restores a 200-year-old Japanese farmhouse.