Ali
21Jul11
I'd contest the 'ironically racist', except in one very early scene at the dining-table, which is in the stock idiom of the time, but doesn't care. Usually it does care. It tries very hard to deal with racism, works it into the script as an ongoing problem, and counters it with big mixed crowd scenes - as well as Richard Dix making speeches, obviously. A shame the Big Pioneer Man is never blamed for anything and it's all shuffled off on nasty rough guys and women with not enough in their purty little heads.... It's not perfect, but it tries, and for 1931 that's creditable, no?