Plenty to Like, Plenty to Dislike

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

"Trailin' East" is another in the Dick Foran, Singing Cowboy series for Warner Bros. This one deals with undercover agents working behind the scenes during the American Civil War.The story begins in the oval office of Abraham Lincoln (Robert Barrat) where the discussion centers around a gang of southern sympathizers in the town of Kent (I think) who are sabotaging the gold shipments bound for the Union cause. Now who will they send to ferret out the bad guys? Just then, a deep baritone voice is heard in the next room serenading the ladies of Washington...guess who?Lt. Red Colton (Foran) is sent by Lincoln to find out who is behind this treachery. Red climbs into his buckskins, straps on his six shooters and heads west. No one would ever suspect that he is a union agent, would they? On the way he meets up with stagecoach carrying the fetching Lucy Blake (Paula Stone). The coach had been attacked by Glenn Strange and his gang but Red managed to drive them off.In town, Red goes to a saloon run by gambler Curley Thorne (Addison Richards who is in league with Jefferson Doane (Gordon "Wild Bill" Elliott) as the confederate sympathizers. Red meets Lucy in the saloon and assumes that she is a "saloon girl" but croons her a song anyway. Doane has Hawk (Henry Otho) steal Red's credentials and plans to impersonate Red not knowing Red's identity.Doane goes to the fort and meets with Colonel Douglas (Joseph Graham) and gets him to reveal the army's plans to ship a large gold shipment to Washington. Meanwhile, Red's pal Happy overhears a plan to ship arms to the Indians. Red and Happy head the arms shipment off at the pass and attempt to seize the shipment but Col. Douglas and the troops arrive and arrest Red as Happy and the bad guys escape.Red is branded a traitor and is about to be court martialed. Red claims his innocence and reveals that his credentials had been stolen. Doane comes to the fort but Red is unable to expose him as the traitor. Another agent unbeknownst to Red goes to the fort to warn the army of the impending Indian attack on the gold train. Red meanwhile, is trying to convince Black Eagle (Jim Thorpe) not to attack.But the Indians attack the wagons and the army escort are forced to try and fight off a superior force but................................................................................................Foran was hardly an inconspicuous under cover agent in his buckskins and six shooters. He gets to sing three songs two of them in the White House no less. This was Elliott's second appearance in the series. He was still a few years away from his breakthrough role as Wild Bill Hickock. Paula Stone was also making her second consecutive appearance as Foran's leading lady.Robert Barrat, I thought, made a n excellent Abraham Lincoln in a limited role. Bud Osborne is also along as the stagecoach driver. He was one of a few actors who could actually drive a team of horses and that is why you'll often see him in such a role in dozens of westerns.

Trailin' West casts Dick Foran as a Union officer in the west on detached duty as a spy to ferret out a nest of Confederate sympathizers. It's a tried and true plot premise used by Warner Brothers on a bigger scale. Foran gets his mission from no less than Abraham Lincoln played by Robert Barrat and Lincoln's spymaster Allan Pinkerton.Foran has no better luck than previous agents from Pinkerton's own ranks who get caught and sometimes killed. He loses his credentials and has to rely on his own wits to complete his mission. That and an extraordinary amount of luck which cowboy heroes seem to be able to draw on like a six shooter if needed.But this is a western made for the Saturday matinée kid crowd and Foran was Warner Brothers B picture western star when he wasn't in A films like The Petrified Forest or The Sisters. And Dick Foran was a good singer who even got to Broadway in a revival of A Connecticut Yankee later on. This film and his other westerns are to exhibit him as a singing cowboy.Not a great spy, but he's got some nice notes.

This is perhaps the dumbest spy movie I've ever seen. Everything possible is done to violate basic security procedures.Maybe Civil War era spies weren't as sophisticated as they are now (or as the average movie fan), but it's impossible to imagine that they'd have been as stupid as they are depicted in this film. Maybe the script was written for Wheeler and Woolsey.