Clarence Badger's THE BAD MAN (1930) Pre-Code Western Huston as Mexican Bandit

Description

Offered here is a vintage original 11x14 in. U.S. lobby card from the early sound western
THE BAD MAN
, released in 1930 by First National Pictures and
directed by Clarence Badger
. Based upon the play by Porter Emerson Browne,
Walter Huston stars as Pancho Lopez, a notorious Mexican bandit. James Rennie plays as the man who once saved his life. When Rennie is unable to pay the mortgage on his ranch and is in risk of losing everything, Huston determines to help him. Sidney Blackmer, who has reason to believe that there is oil on Rennie's property, attempts to swindle Rennie and buy the property from him for a low price. Huston soon discovers that Rennie is in love with Blackmer's wife (played by Dorothy Revier) and consequently has Blackmer shot so that they can pursue their romance. Huston then robs a bank and uses the money to pay-off Rennie's mortgage. Having the ranch securely in his hands, Rennie is now free to marry Revier. As Huston says goodbye to the couple, he is overtaken by the Texas Rangers and shot.
The image features an interior
medium
shot of
Walter Huston
in costume and make-up as Pancho Lopez as he casually leans on a table and looks over his shoulder, his pistol at-the-ready and a slim cigar dangling from his mouth.
The border artwork at the left features a great caricature of him at the top (with a
smoldering
cigar) with the film's title rendered in bright yellow against a jet-black background. Printed for the film's original 1930 U.S. theatrical release by First National Pictures and the Vitaphone Corporation, this vintage original lobby card is unrestored and in fine- condition with one or two pinholes in or near each corner; light signs of wear along the top edge; random creases on the top border; a 2 in. long area of smudging in the bottom border to the right of center; light signs of wear on the bottom corners; and a tiny circular area in the black background of the border artwork below the title where a prior owner had darkened a tiny surface flaw to blend in with the rest of the background. The color tints are fresh and vibrant without any signs of fading.
Provenance: The Morris Everett Jr. Collection.
Leading lady Dorothy Revier was loaned out from Columbia Pictures to replace Myrna Loy after shooting had begun. The footage that Loy had filmed was junked except for long shots where she stood in for Revier. In a separately filmed trailer, Vitaphone production reel #4220, Walter Huston tells the audience about the picture. Two Foreign Language Versions of the 1930 version of
The Bad Man
were made: the Spanish version was titled
El hombre Malo
while the French version was titled
Lopez, le bandit
. An incomplete nitrate print of this film—8 out of 9 reels—survives in the UCLA Film and Television Archive. The entire film is in danger of being lost, however, if the film is not preserved in the near future, as the film has already begun to decompose.