Tumbleweeds is a 1925 Western film starring and produced by William S. Hart. It depicts the Cherokee Strip land rush of 1893. The film is said to have influenced the Oscar-winning 1931 Western Cimarron, which also depicts the land rush. The 1939 re-release of Tumbleweeds includes an 8-minute introduction by the then 75 year old Hart as he talks about his career and the “glories of the old west.” Tumbleweeds was Hart’s last movie.
Background
In the Cherokee Strip of Oklahoma during the 1880′s and early 1890′s, the government lands that were leased to cattlemen were opened to settlement by homesteaders. To allow a fair chance for everyone, the prospective homesteaders were required to register and registrants were prohibited from entering into the Strip before the appointed time. Those who tried to get there beforehand were called “Sooners”. Hence the nickname of Oklahoma is the Sooner State. When a cannon shot signaled the start of the land rush, a hundred thousand men and women tried to stake their claims.
Plot
Set in Caldwell, Kansas on the Kansas-Oklahoma border, the movie features cowboy Don Carver (Hart) as a “tumbleweed” (i.e., a drifter) who decides to settle down after falling in love with Molly Lassiter (Barbara Bedford). Carver decides to get in on the Cherokee Strip land rush but when he’s arrested and parted from his new love, he’s in danger of missing the big race. Lucien Littlefield plays a strong supporting role in the movie as Hart’s comic sidekick and best friend.
Contemporary Reviews
Reviews at the time of its release praised Tumbleweeds as good entertainment. The New York Times reviewed the film in 1925 and wrote that Hart’s performance emphasized “righteousness, his mental dexterity and physical prowess” in the role of Carver.“Although much of Don Carver’s accuracy in shooting and his turning up at the psychological moment is nothing but the camera’s good work, it should be noted that Mr. Carver, impersonated by Mr. Hart, frequently won applause from the audience yesterday afternoon.”
A 1926 review of Tumbleweeds in Photoplay Magazine says “Bill Hart returns to the screen in a story laid in the time when the Indian territory was turned over to the homesteaders. The scene in which the prospective land owners, waiting for the cannon’s boom which would send them racing in to stake their claims, furnished a brand new thrill…It is good entertainment.”
