Tumbleweeds (1925 film)

The script by prolific western screenwriter, Hal G. Evarts, is based on the historical Cherokee Strip land rush of 1893. The story dramatizes the government lands, that had been leased to cattlemen, that were to be opened for settlement by homesteaders in the late 19th century. All prospective homesteaders were required to register before the allotted start time. To give everyone a fair chance, a cannon shot was fired to signal the beginning of the land rush when registrants were allowed to enter the strip. Those who tried to get in beforehand were called "Sooners"; the nickname of Oklahoma is the Sooner State.

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.[2] "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, ... Mr. Carver, impersonated by Mr. Hart, frequently won applause from the audience yesterday afternoon."[2]

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."[3]

Modern reviews of Tumbleweeds have lauded it as the high point of Hart's career and as a seminal film of the silent era that was unique for its era in its depiction of Indians and black Americans. Gary Johnson in Images Journal said that although Tumbleweeds was only a mild box-office success, it is arguably Hart's finest film.[1] "The movie's most impressive sequence remains the land rush", wrote Johnson.[1] "All manners of vehicles -- covered wagons, surreys, stagecoaches, even a large-wheeled bicycle -- bounce over the prairie in the mad rush to claim land. Other films would attempt to recreate the Oklahoma land rush -- such as Cimarron, which won the Best Picture Academy Award in 1931 -- but Tumbleweeds remains the best example."[1]

John Nesbitt wrote that Hart went out on a high note with Tumbleweeds.[4] "Tumbleweeds stands up remarkably well, and most film devotees will find it among the more interesting and entertaining melodramas of the silent era", wrote Nesbitt.[4] Tammy Stone wrote that Hart was to Westerns what Chaplin was to comedy and that Hart managed to "both stay in the game and go out with a bang" in his last film Tumbleweeds.[5] Hart's "last film is widely considered to be his masterpiece, and also one of the seminal films of the silent era", she added.[5] Michael W. Phillips Jr. wrote in 2007 that the movie was unique in movies of the era because it included Native Americans who weren't faceless villains but Hart's friends and included African Americans among the boomers of 1889.[6] " Today, the film holds a 100% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes.[7]