CUSTER'S LAST STAND
15 CHAPTER SERIAL
1936

A tribe loses its sacred Medicine Arrow, which holds the key to the location of a cave of gold. Major Trent, a retired Confederate doctor, is in possession of the arrow and is heading west with his daughter & grandson. Meanwhile, Keen Blade, co-owner of the local gambling house is after the arrow and teams up with renegade Indian Young Wolf, who is also trying to recover the arrow to become leader of his tribe.

Custer's Last Stand has many more principal characters than the usual serial fare, each with their own story thread. Along the way there's a hero searching for his father's killer, a disgraced soldier battling alcoholism, a renegade Indian trying to foment a battle with the white settlers, an Indian girl with divided loyalties, an equally conflicted saloon owner, shoot-outs, fist-fights and large-scale battles, as well as cameo appearances by Buffalo Bill, Calamity Jane and Wild Bill Hickock. There are always at least two or three separate story threads playing out simultaneously, with the action cutting back and forth among them. We're used to this kind of story construction today - it's standard television soap opera technique - but in a mid-1930s serial it was pretty revolutionary.

CAST:
Rex Lease    ...     Kit Cardigan / John C. Cardigan
Lona Andre    ...     Belle Meade
William Farnum    ...     James Fitzpatrick
Ruth Mix    ...     Elizabeth Custer
Jack Mulhall    ...     Lt. Cook
Nancy Caswell    ...     Barbara Trent
George Chesebro    ...     Lt. Frank Roberts
Dorothy Gulliver    ...     Red Fawn
Frank McGlynn Jr.    ...     Gen. George A. Custer
Helen Gibson    ...     Calamity Jane
Josef Swickard    ...     Maj. Henry Trent MD
Chief Thundercloud    ...     Young Wolf
Reed Howes    ...     Tom 'Keen' Blade
Robert Walker    ...     Henchman Pete
Bobby Nelson    ...     Bobby Trent

CHAPTERS:
1. Perils of the Plains
2. Thundering Hoofs
3. Fires of Vengeance
4. The Ghost Dancers
5. Trapped
6. Human Wolves
7. Demons of Disaster
8. White Treachery
9. Circle of Death
10. Flaming Arrow
11. Warpath
12. Firing Squad
13. Red Panthers
14. Custer's Last Ride
15. The Last Stand

RUNNING TIME: 328 MIN