That was an excellent one.

A Masterpiece!

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

Original release prints were processed in sepia. Copyright 3 January 1939 by Loew's Inc. A Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Picture. New York opening at the Capitol: 26 January 1939. U.S. release: 6 January 1939. Australian release: 9 March 1939. 105 minutes. COMMENT: Beery receives top billing, even though his role is smaller - due to the fact that he doesn't come on for quite a spell. He is his usual lovable slob, blustering heavily all over the place. Much publicity was made of his two fist-fights with Taylor, but seen today it is obvious that while Beery does most of his own slugging, "Pretty Boy" is doubled for all but the close shots. Speeded-up action doesn't help conviction either. Other camera tricks include process screens in the fox hunt and train ride. Nonetheless we love the train with its converted coach carriages (startlingly unique). Miss Rice is a most attractive (and attractively photographed) heroine. It's good to see Taylor in a period picture, a nice sprawling bit of lavishly produced action-romance. Woody's direction is pacey but undistinguished, although we are treated to great camerawork and costumes. Miss Broderick holds up the comic relief ably, despite weak lines. Qualen has a big part as T's sidekick. So does Rosemond as an ex-slave. Bickford and MacLane are brief villains. OTHER VIEWS: Beery and Taylor got on well together, as Taylor was actually a hunting pal of grouchy Wally off the set. The script is designed to give both stars opportunities. Beery is richly colorful, Taylor virile yet sympathetic in the same man's-man way. Both relish a fight. Both are short with the ladies. Taylor presents his characterization much more convincingly than over-the-top Beery. Of course when it comes to their actual fist-fighting, a double for Taylor is very obviously used in all but the close-ups. The more experienced Beery, who knew how to pull and avoid punches, slugs it out with Taylor's double in the medium and long shots. Unfortunately, Van Dyke decided to garnish the rough stuff by speeding up the action. The end result looks phony. Nor is audience involvement helped by a number of extraneous scenes which pad out the running time and slow down the action. Trimming would certainly help. Even the climax in the snow seems to take forever to resolve into its totally anticipated conclusion. Despite a fair bit of money thrown at the screen, Stand Up and Fight too often lacks vigor. In fact Van Dyke exhibits so little of his customary flair and pacey fluid style, one could be excused for concluding the movie was actually directed by Richard Thorpe. - John Howard Reid writing as George Addison.

Perhaps a little historical perspective might assist some of today's viewers of this film. (Those viewing the film in 1939 would have been naturally much more knowledgeable of that history than most viewers today.) The film "Stand Up And Fight" (USA, 1939) depicts a fictional story within a complex and multi-faceted historical background. The story is set in 1844 Cumberland Maryland, which became a key east-west point along the westward settler route through the Appalachian Mountains, and a key north-south point along the underground railroad assisting escaped slaves -- when the B&O Railroad opened in 1842, the nation's first Telegraph lines went operational, and the C&O Canal opened in 1850 -- all using rights of way along the same Potomac River that flows past Cumberland and on down past Washington DC.Within this context the story concerns a pre-Civil War racket involving the capture and reselling of fugitive slaves in a key border location between abolitionist North and slavery South just as the railroad was beginning to compete hard against the stagecoach and wagon trains, and the canal was about to move huge quantities of coal out of the mountains. Most of the laborers building the railroad, the canal, the telegraph and the coal mines were uneducated and impoverished recent escapees from the British-oppressed serf plantation of Ireland.Mid-way along that 120-mile Potomac River route between Cumberland and Washington is strategic Harper's Ferry, where the Shenandoah river meets the Potomac and where John Brown's Raid on an armory in 1859 began to galvanize large portions of the nation's public opinion on each side of the slavery/secession issue. At the time of Brown's raid, Harper's Ferry was in the big slavery (Confederate) state of Virginia, which was also the state just across the river in Cumberland in the abolitionist (Union) state of Maryland.The American Civil War began in April 1961. West Virginia became a state a few months later following the Wheeling Conventions of 1861, in which abolitionist delegates from 30 northwestern Virginia counties decided to break away from Virginia. West Virginia immediately became a key Civil War border state and was formally admitted to the Union in June 1863. West Virginia was the only state to form by separating from a Confederate state, the first to separate from any state since Maine separated from Massachusetts in 1820.The north-south terrain of the Appalachian Mountains is what enabled General Lee to move a huge Confederate army through the Shenandoah all the way north into Pennsylvania to meet a similar huge Union army at Gettysburg – far behind Northern "lines" – during the first three days of July in 1863.

This film probably would have been better if Robert Taylor was pitted against Charles Bickford rather than Wallace Berry. I didn't believe their confrontation, but I do believe that if Taylor was up against Bickford then their confrontation would be believable. Taylor redeems himself by demanding that enslaved African-Americans be sold as a family rather than splitting them up. The film would have been better if we had an enslaved African-American character that we could identify with. The fugitive African-American is too old to be sold as a house slave and is in danger of being killed off as he is unsaleable. Taylor befriends him and we have the germ of an intimate acquaintanceship. This subject matter was dealt with better in 'Roots'.

Cynical Southern gentleman Blake Cantrell (Robert Taylor) is forced to sell his plantation and seek employment with a stagecoach company run by Captain Starkey (Wallace Beery) and owned by lovely Susan (Florence Rice). But is the company actually illegally transporting slaves? And can a leopard, the cavalier Blake, actually change its spots?I didn't expect much from this movie, and was thoroughly and positively surprised by the sharp writing and ebullient acting, and contrary to many A-movies of its day its aim is no way an aesthetic 'arty' one. Made in 1939, this movie addresses all sorts of controversial issues, and they have a way of taking you by surprise along the way. The movie is really about abolitionism and treats its subject with remarkable subtlety, although why and how the lynch-mob, the one that we encounter in the last third of the film, goes after white man Starkey is never made quite clear. Cantrell's gradual moral reform is well-explained and plausible, not least because of Taylor's warmth and humanity in the part. Yes, he is handsome, but here it is almost besides the point. Wallace Beery has a field day with the larger-than-life captain, very cleverly balancing on the edge of buffoonery but with plenty of edge and ambiguity.See it, it makes a deep impression.