Underplayed Gems

Allegheny Uprising (1939)

Allegheny Uprising poster
Directed by
William A. Seiter
Genre
western, action, adventure, history
Country
United States
Runtime
1h 21m
Rated
NR
Rating
5.9 of 10 from 32 voters
Elsewhere
IMDb
The 3D catalogue: film cases on wooden shelves, with the cat sitting at the counter next to its greeting.

The catalogue in 3D

The film shelves have a room of their own that you can walk around in. The cat behind the counter is the AI Catbot, and they pick real films from the same catalogue when you tell them what you feel like watching. Nothing is for sale, here or in there. Go in from here and this film is already out on the counter, with more like it waiting on the shelf next to it.

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How it feels

In colonial America, a frontiersman named James Smith leads a group of settlers in resisting British authority after a conflict with native tribes. He works to stop the British from selling guns to the local Indians. John Wayne plays the frontiersman who takes on a rebellion against unfair rule.

stirringpatrioticaction-filledold-fashionedearnestromanticadventurouslight-hearted

What happens

Allegheny Uprising (released in the UK as The First Rebel) is a 1939 American Adventure Western film directed by William A. Seiter and starring Claire Trevor and John Wayne. Based on the 1937 novel The First Rebel by Neil H. Swanson, with a screenplay by the film's producer, P. J. Wolfson, the film is loosely based on the historical event known as the Black Boys Rebellion, which took place in 1765 after the conclusion of the French and Indian War. It was produced by RKO Pictures. Clad in buckskin and a coonskin cap (as he would be a decade later in The Fighting Kentuckian), Wayne plays real-life James Smith, an American coping with British rule in colonial America. The supporting cast includes Brian Donlevy, George Sanders and Chill Wills. Claire Trevor and John Wayne also headed the cast of John Ford's Stagecoach the same year, and in both films as well as Dark Command the following year, Trevor is top-billed over Wayne due to her greater name value at the time. The film did not fare well in its initial release. The superficially similar John Ford film Drums Along the Mohawk had been released only one week prior. In the United Kingdom, where the film kept the original title, it was initially banned by the Ministry of Information for placing the British, already at war against Nazi Germany, in a bad light. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

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