Terrible acting, screenplay and direction.

Self-important, over-dramatic, uninspired.

A Brilliant Conflict

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

This is an interesting story and quite progressive for it's time. I've noticed that a couple of previous user reviews are inaccurate in terms of what goes on in the story. Robert Taylor is a spoiled aristocrat who loses his estate and lifestyle in the slave state of Marylan and for the first time in his life is forced to seek work. He is attracted to a beautiful Boston woman who owns a stagecoach line in western Maryland (Cumberland). He is arrogant and spurns the love interest who suggests he find work and himself heads west to Cumberland where he turns down a job working for the new B & O Railroad and ends up in jail after a bar fight. He is bailed out by Wallace Beery's character who runs the stage coach line and also profits on the side by using the line's wagons to spirit fugitive slave to freedom in nearby Pennsylvania. Unbehknownst to Beery, the man he thinks is an abolitionist running the slaves to freedom is actually reselling them into slavery in the south and murdering those slaves he cannot sell. This complicated tale becomes more complicated when the love interest arrives in Cumberland to "inspect" her stage coach line and finds that Robert Taylor is in jail and Wallace Beery has paid his bail in exchange for 3 months free labor on the stagecoach line. Taylor and Beery don't like one another at all and clash throughout the build of the movie even gettng into two fist fights. Talyor learns that the stage coach line's wagons are being used to resell the slaves who think they are headed to freedom and exposes it believing Beery's character is in on the heinous crime being perpetrated. In the end Taylor's efforts reveal the true nature of the man posing as an abolitionist but really selling the slaves back into slavery and the conflict between himself and Beery is resolved and in the bargain he gets the girl too. After all, it is Hollywood. Very interesting movie on numerous fronts including the slavery issue and it's many intriguting/horrifying facets, watching the very young Robert Taylor in action as a dashing young man who transforms from dilletente into an honorable , courageous man and to see Beery portraying a bigger than life ruffian who, though out for himself, is also a decent human being who wants to help slaves get to freedom. Definitely worth watching.

Original release prints were processed in sepia. Copyright 3 January 1939 by Loew's Inc. A Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Picture. New York opening at the Capitol: 26 January 1939. U.S. release: 6 January 1939. Australian release: 9 March 1939. 105 minutes. COMMENT: Beery receives top billing, even though his role is smaller - due to the fact that he doesn't come on for quite a spell. He is his usual lovable slob, blustering heavily all over the place. Much publicity was made of his two fist-fights with Taylor, but seen today it is obvious that while Beery does most of his own slugging, "Pretty Boy" is doubled for all but the close shots. Speeded-up action doesn't help conviction either. Other camera tricks include process screens in the fox hunt and train ride. Nonetheless we love the train with its converted coach carriages (startlingly unique). Miss Rice is a most attractive (and attractively photographed) heroine. It's good to see Taylor in a period picture, a nice sprawling bit of lavishly produced action-romance. Woody's direction is pacey but undistinguished, although we are treated to great camerawork and costumes. Miss Broderick holds up the comic relief ably, despite weak lines. Qualen has a big part as T's sidekick. So does Rosemond as an ex-slave. Bickford and MacLane are brief villains. OTHER VIEWS: Beery and Taylor got on well together, as Taylor was actually a hunting pal of grouchy Wally off the set. The script is designed to give both stars opportunities. Beery is richly colorful, Taylor virile yet sympathetic in the same man's-man way. Both relish a fight. Both are short with the ladies. Taylor presents his characterization much more convincingly than over-the-top Beery. Of course when it comes to their actual fist-fighting, a double for Taylor is very obviously used in all but the close-ups. The more experienced Beery, who knew how to pull and avoid punches, slugs it out with Taylor's double in the medium and long shots. Unfortunately, Van Dyke decided to garnish the rough stuff by speeding up the action. The end result looks phony. Nor is audience involvement helped by a number of extraneous scenes which pad out the running time and slow down the action. Trimming would certainly help. Even the climax in the snow seems to take forever to resolve into its totally anticipated conclusion. Despite a fair bit of money thrown at the screen, Stand Up and Fight too often lacks vigor. In fact Van Dyke exhibits so little of his customary flair and pacey fluid style, one could be excused for concluding the movie was actually directed by Richard Thorpe. - John Howard Reid writing as George Addison.

Perhaps a little historical perspective might assist some of today's viewers of this film. (Those viewing the film in 1939 would have been naturally much more knowledgeable of that history than most viewers today.) The film "Stand Up And Fight" (USA, 1939) depicts a fictional story within a complex and multi-faceted historical background. The story is set in 1844 Cumberland Maryland, which became a key east-west point along the westward settler route through the Appalachian Mountains, and a key north-south point along the underground railroad assisting escaped slaves -- when the B&O Railroad opened in 1842, the nation's first Telegraph lines went operational, and the C&O Canal opened in 1850 -- all using rights of way along the same Potomac River that flows past Cumberland and on down past Washington DC.Within this context the story concerns a pre-Civil War racket involving the capture and reselling of fugitive slaves in a key border location between abolitionist North and slavery South just as the railroad was beginning to compete hard against the stagecoach and wagon trains, and the canal was about to move huge quantities of coal out of the mountains. Most of the laborers building the railroad, the canal, the telegraph and the coal mines were uneducated and impoverished recent escapees from the British-oppressed serf plantation of Ireland.Mid-way along that 120-mile Potomac River route between Cumberland and Washington is strategic Harper's Ferry, where the Shenandoah river meets the Potomac and where John Brown's Raid on an armory in 1859 began to galvanize large portions of the nation's public opinion on each side of the slavery/secession issue. At the time of Brown's raid, Harper's Ferry was in the big slavery (Confederate) state of Virginia, which was also the state just across the river in Cumberland in the abolitionist (Union) state of Maryland.The American Civil War began in April 1961. West Virginia became a state a few months later following the Wheeling Conventions of 1861, in which abolitionist delegates from 30 northwestern Virginia counties decided to break away from Virginia. West Virginia immediately became a key Civil War border state and was formally admitted to the Union in June 1863. West Virginia was the only state to form by separating from a Confederate state, the first to separate from any state since Maine separated from Massachusetts in 1820.The north-south terrain of the Appalachian Mountains is what enabled General Lee to move a huge Confederate army through the Shenandoah all the way north into Pennsylvania to meet a similar huge Union army at Gettysburg – far behind Northern "lines" – during the first three days of July in 1863.

In this slightly unconventional western which does not always follow the usual stylings and cliches of the western, Woody S. Van Dyke, the biggest director, box-office wise on the MGM lot has created a crowd pleaser and a good one too. To believe, this movie deals with trafficking of slaves as an aberration. The movie is set up north where most of the people are abolitionist. There is even a scene where the townspeople want to hang a white man for killing a black man. I kid you not. Taylor is our poverty-stricken southern man who has lost it all and now has to work for a living. Beery runs a stage coach company on the side that helps slaves escape. But someone is capturing this slaves and reselling them back to the southerners. Taylor, when an ex-slave he sets free gets caught decides to find out who. Also, there is a changing of an era clash as the early unrefined and prototype steam engine is just getting started and wants to buy the stagecoach company and its route to link up its tracks. Taylor works for them. Beery and Taylor clash. So who is capturing and reselling the slaves? Is it Beery? If not, then who? Or is Taylor a spy for the railroad company? If not, what is he up to? Enough said. Two big stars who are charming and likable. A romantic interest. MGM cinematography and scenery. A big hit for the studio.