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5/10
Senior Film Conservator
A definitive 5/10 rating for a film that redefined the boundaries of cult cinema. Wildcat Trooper remains a cornerstone of transgressive art.
If you have an hour to kill and you don't mind a movie that looks like it was filmed through a light layer of dust, Wildcat Trooper is actually a decent time. You should watch this if you miss the days when heroes were just inherently good because they wore a specific hat.
Kermit Maynard stars as Bruce Mackaye. He’s a Mountie who seems to spend most of his time looking very serious while sitting on a horse.
I think people who like the old-school "Northern" genre—you know, the ones where everyone is obsessed with the Canadian wilderness—will get a kick out of this. If you need 4K resolution and complex anti-heroes, you are going to hate this movie with a passion.
The whole plot is built around this guy called "The Raven." He’s a criminal that everyone talks about in hushed tones, but the catch is that nobody has ever seen his face.
It’s a great setup for a mystery. Maybe a bit too great for a movie that only lasts about sixty minutes.
I kept waiting for some big reveal, like maybe the Raven was the horse. (It wasn't the horse, but that would have been a five-star twist).
Let’s talk about Rocky the Horse for a second. He is credited in the opening, and honestly, he deserves top billing over some of the humans.
There is a scene where Kermit (or his stunt double, but Kermit was actually a great rider) does this flying mount that made me audibly gasp. It’s so fluid and dangerous-looking compared to the stiff acting in the cabin scenes.
I noticed that Rocky seems to have more personality in his ears than the main villain does in his entire performance. The horse actually looks like he’s listening to the dialogue, which is more than I can say for some of the supporting cast.
Speaking of the cast, we have Fuzzy Knight doing his usual comedy routine. He plays the sidekick, and his jokes are... well, they are from 1936.
Some of the humor is so dry it’s practically parched. I didn't laugh, but I did smile once when he looked confused by a door.
The movie feels very similar to Where North Holds Sway in how it treats the landscape. The woods look cold, the cabins look drafty, and you can almost smell the wet wool uniforms.
The Raven is supposed to be this terrifying ghost of the North. But the way the characters talk about him, you’d think he was a legendary cryptid rather than a guy who just steals stuff.
There is a weird tension in the scenes where they discuss him. It’s like the actors forgot they were in a B-movie and briefly thought they were in a high-stakes thriller.
Then someone falls off a porch or a gun goes off with a sound like a wet firecracker, and we are back to reality. It’s that unevenness that I actually kind of love about these old Poverty Row productions.
The writing is by Joseph O'Donnell and James Oliver Curwood. Curwood wrote a lot of these "North" stories, and you can tell he likes his heroes brave and his villains shadowy.
If you’ve seen The Michigan Kid, you know the vibe. It’s all about honor, the law of the land, and having a really fast horse.
Yakima Canutt is in this! If you don't know the name, he’s basically the god of movie stunts. Whenever someone falls off a horse in a way that looks like they definitely broke a rib, that’s usually Yakima.
The fight scenes are fast. There’s no fancy choreography here; it’s just guys swinging their arms like they are trying to swat a very large, very angry fly.
One reaction shot of a witness watching a fight lingers for about three seconds too long. The actor just looks like he’s wondering what’s for lunch. 🍕
I also found it funny how clean the Mountie uniforms stay. They are trekking through dirt and brush, but that red coat stays pristine.
It’s like the dirt is afraid of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. I wish my laundry worked that way.
Is it a masterpiece? Absolutely not. It’s barely a movie by modern standards—it’s more like a filmed Saturday morning campfire story.
But there is something so cozy about it. It’s the kind of film you put on when it’s raining outside and you want to see a guy in a flat-brimmed hat save the day.
It’s much more straightforward than something like The Great Gabbo, which is just weird. This is just meat-and-potatoes filmmaking.
I’ll probably forget most of the plot by next week, but I’ll remember that horse. Rocky is the GOAT.
Give it a watch if you find it on a streaming service for free. Don't pay actual money for it unless you are a die-hard collector of 1930s Canadian-themed westerns filmed in California.
It’s better than a lot of the stuff from that era, mostly because it doesn't try to be more than it is. It’s just a wildcat of a movie. (Sorry, I had to do it).
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