I was recently reading about Jean Arthur and I was surprised to find out that
she and Joel McCrea starred together in, not one, but
two movies before
THE MORE THE MERRIER
in 1943. This was the first film and
ADVENTURE IN MANHATTAN
(1936) the second. THE SILVER HORDE finds Joel McCrea as an average dude
trying to make some money in the salmon business in order to earn some money and
therefore be worthy of marrying rich girl Jean Arthur. Yeah. Anyway,
Joel is in Alaska working his ass off while a rival love interest of Arthur is
doing his best to upset McCrea's plans. But then comes the big shocker...I
hope you're ready for this...McCrea's main financial backer used to be a
prostitute. Gasp!!! Maybe that was a little bit more shocking back
in 1930.
As a piece of movie history THE SILVER HORDE is mildly interesting to classic
movie nerds like myself. It has a young Arthur and McCrea, a number of
silent movie veterans and portions of it were actually filmed in Alaska, but
that's really it. If nothing in that last sentence grabbed your attention
then you should probably just pass.
