Saturday Action Matinee

Scouts to the Rescue (1939), Chapter 8: “Thundering Hoofs”

The Resolution: Despite the old log bridge being over forty feet from the shallow, rock-filled river, Bruce suffered no ill effects when dynamite blew up one end of it and sent it downward. He clung onto the guide ropes, which held, as one end of the log fell; the other end stayed anchored momentarily, then slid down into the water, smooth as you please. (Yes, there is a waterfall at the other end of the river. No, that didn’t come up as a threat, nor do I think it will, for reasons to be given below.)

The Narrative: Bruce wades out of the river on the original side and starts walking back toward camp or wherever. But remember, all of The Great Outdoors can be encompassed in two square acres. The bad guys who left the log bridge and drove away when the Indians attacked stopped when the Indians gave up the chase, and are now going to work their way up this bank on foot, thinking that Scanlon and Mary didn’t get across the bridge and therefore are hiding on this side. Naturally, Bruce is close enough to overhear their plans, so he swims back across the river — which at this point has no cliffs around it — to find Marvin, Skeets, Scanlon and Mary. In fact, he wades across it, and it’s more of a large creek than a real river. Makes you wonder why someone built a log bridge atop the higher cliffs a quarter mile upstream, doesn’t it?

The four who made it across the river run into some Indians, but shoot them off their horses, in the course of which altercation Scanlon gets an arrow to the arm. Bruce treks toward them and finds that the horses the Indians were riding were in fact stolen Boy Scout horses; one of them is Bruce’s own horse, Scout! (A Boy Scout names his horse “Scout”? What do Mounties name their horses?) He meets up with the other four — of course he does! — and tells them where the gangsters are and what their plans are. Scanlon has voluntarily given himself into Marvin’s custody, and together the five of them… See wild horses! Yes, tons of stock footage informs us that there are herds and herds of wild horses on the other side of the river. Aren’t they beautiful?

They all get back to Scout camp, without getting wet (that’s why I don’t think the waterfall at the end of the river will ever amount to anything, even in later chapters, because the whole river has apparently disappeared), where Scanlon shares the “hospital tent” with juvenile delinquent Rip, who last issue broke his leg and was taken in by the Boy Scouts despite his past misdeed and present snotty attitude.

The Cliffhanger: But just when everything seems peaceful — the horses stampede! That’s right, no longer hemmed in by the river (because it disappeared, the screenwriters having forgotten about it), they start stampeding by the hundreds right toward the Boy Scout camp! Bruce swings himself onto Scout in an attempt to turn them, and seems to be successful, but falls off of his mount right into the path of the charging horses! (By which I mean, someone from an old silent movie falls off HIS mount into the path of the charging horses!)

Next Week: “The Fire God Strikes”