LET FREEDOM RING

CREDITS

1938, 100 minutes, B&W.
Producer, Harry Rapf; Director, Jack Conway; Screenplay, Ben Hecht; Cinematography, Sidney Wagner; Music Direction, Arthur Lange.

CAST

Steve Logan, Nelson Eddy; Chris Mulligan, Victor McLaglen; Maggie Adams, Virginia Bruce; Tom Logan, Lionel Barrymore; Rutledge, H.B. Warner; Underwood, Raymond Walburn; Jim Knox, Edward Arnold; Judge Bronson, Guy Kibbee; The Mackerel, Charles Butterworth; Cockney, Billy Bevan; Pop Wilkie, George 'Gabby' Hayes.

SONGS

America by Henry Carey and Samuel Francis Smith; Home Sweet Home by Henry Bishop and John Howard Payne; Love Serenade by Riccardo Drigo, Bob Wright and Chet Forrest; Ten Thousand Cattle Straying by Owen Wister; When Irish Eyes Are Smiling by Ernest R. Ball, Chauncey Olcott and George Graff, Jr.; Pat-Sez He by Phil Ohman and Foster Carling; The Dusty Road by Otis and Leon Rene; Where Else But Here by Sigmund Romberg and Edward Heyman; Funiculi Funicula by Luigi Denza; I've Been Working On the Railroad.

PLOT SYNOPSIS

"The setting is the west circa 1868. The villain is the land-grabbing railroad, personified by smooth-talking tycoon Jim Knox (Edward Arnold). Assisted by Chris Mulligan (Victor McLaglen) - a ham-fisted bully and foreman of a crew of two hundred immigrant laborers - Knox gobbles up settlers' land in the name of 'progress.' He finally meets his match, however, when he comes up against leathery rancher Tom Logan (Lionel Barrymore) and Logan's Harvard graduate son, Steve (Nelson Eddy)."
- Liner Notes from MGM/Turner Videotape

NOTES

"Let Freedom Ring was a patriotic Western with songs. . .its main theme was anti-discrimination, and the best thing that could be said for it was that its heart was in the right place."
- Clive Hirschhorn, The Hollywood Musical

"Big box office. . .lusty patriotic meller. Cinch for exploitation."
- Variety

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