Baseshment I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

Calum Hutton It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

Zandra The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

Roxie The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

JohnHowardReid Executive producer: Robert L. Lippert. Copyright by 24 December 1945 by Action Pictures, Inc. Released through Screen Guild Productions. No recorded New York opening. U.S. release: 30 November 1945. Not released in Australia. 66 minutes. COMMENT: Pleasingly photographed almost entirely in attractively real Canadian locations, this "B" western (or "northern") easily ranks as the finest achievement of director Derwin Abrahams. Admittedly, he was handed a first-rate cast and an interesting script filled with both action and offbeat characters, but he has nonetheless handled the assignment with commendable vigor, using running inserts effectively and drawing winning performances from all his players, particularly Joan Woodbury, Madge Bellamy, George Meeker and John Litel. It is Raymond Hatton, however, in a most unusual role, who walks off with the picture's acting honors. See if you can spot him! I'll give you a clue. For once, he doesn't play the comic relief sidekick. That role is enacted quite ably by Poodles Hanneford, who makes quite a nice change from the usual dumb-as-they-come pardner. As for hero, Bob Steele, he gives a maturely relaxed yet two-fisted portrayal that will delight his fans and even mollify his detractors. He and Joan Woodbury seem brightly and evenly matched and both noticeably do all their own stunt-work, including a great deal of extremely fast riding.

Cristi_Ciopron This is northern as delightfulness, a mellowed genre by '45 (but by the year this movie has been made, its genre had another 10 yrs of output ahead of it), with at least 15 yrs of sustained output; the twin of the western had an even more beautiful literary pedigree (which is, Curwood instead of Grey), and 'Northwest Trail' is a celebration of the beauties of the genre: the refreshing poetry, the intense charm of the landscape (I approached this genre on choice, looking for these values), plus a standout cast: Steele as a trooper, Madge Bellamy as a severely beaten wife, Hatton as a bartender, the cast being in itself quite polychrome, and a good score. Here, Steele's ease shows you he was a good actor, no mean accomplishment, he was good when he had a script; his role here came only 5 yrs after 'Billy the Kid in Texas', but much had changed, so that 'Northwest Trail', a title to epitomize a whole genre, has also a dramatic plot, not only an action plot, which in itself was quite a step ahead. The northern movies had bucolic poetry, refreshing landscapes, another take on the American nature. Here, the script has self-referential and parody lines, but it's not a feeling of twilight, but the mellowness of a certain storytelling. Story-wise, a trooper steps into a nest of evildoers, his own life soon jeopardized, and the movie is a mystery tale: the chance for Steele to get a new life on screen as an action actor, doing a very good physical role.I have seen the movie from 10 PM on, with a break after 20'.

csteidler Northwest Trail features a lot of positives, actually: Bob Steele and Joan Woodbury, a decent plot, a fast pace...and, especially, some color photography that was probably quite gorgeous in 1945 when the print was fresh. Unfortunately, the colors have long-since faded, at least on the version I saw. But it had to be something of an investment for an independent B-movie company to produce anything in color at that time. And the "Canadian" scenery really did add to my enjoyment of an otherwise solid story.Fun to see John Litel as a Mountie whose actions must be described as "hm, suspicious." And the always-snarling Charles Middleton has a few good moments as a French-Canadian backwoods bad guy named "Pierre." (His name is how I know he's French.) Plenty of action here. And the interaction between Joan Woodbury and Bob Steele is satisfying--as one might expect, he's steady as a rock throughout the picture, while she's annoying as can be in their initial encounter but they gradually grow on each other....A lot to like in a mere hour.

sddavis63 It's not exactly Nelson Eddy and Jeannette McDonald from an earlier era, but this is Bob Steele and Joan Woodbury offering their take on a Mountie who gets his man - as well as his girl! This is B-movie stuff, although of pretty good quality. It has beautiful scenery and a decent enough mystery, as Steele, playing Trooper O'Brien (a guy who comes across as a dedicated but not perhaps the best Mountie around), has to escort Woodbury (who played Kate) through the British Columbia wilderness to the settlement where her American uncle is engaged in mining. Unfortunately, she gets robbed of $20000 she was carrying to her uncle (unknown to O'Brien) and the Trooper gets to play detective as he seeks to solve the mystery.This really isn't bad. It's unpredictable, and I didn't see the end coming. The B-movie veteran Steele was earnest in the role but perhaps a bit stiff at times; he was outshone by Woodbury, who was pretty good as Kate. In general, the performances were OK, but not the greatest - which is why this is a B-movie, after all. After an unpredictable resolution to the mystery, the actual ending of the movie was a bit too predictable. It would have been more jarring had Kate been part of the plot rather than simply ending up as O'Brien's love interest. Still, it's a short and relatively interesting movie that overcomes the flaws in some of the performances.