Here’s Hurricane at Pilgrim Hill, a delightful moral comedy (1950, 50:43) written by James Charles Lynch, directed by Richard L. Bare, produced by Hal Roach, Jr., and starring Clem Bevans as Sam ‘Bigmouth’ Smedley (hero), Cecil Kellaway as Jonathan Huntoon Smith (bad guy), David Bruce as Tom Adams, Smith’s attorney, Virginia Grey as Janet Smedley Adams, Sam’s grand- daughter & Tom’s wife, Leslie Banning as Debbie Smith, Jonathan’s daughter, Robert Board as Steve Terhune, Debbie’s true love, Syd Saylor as Sheriff Luke Arundle, and with delightful appearances by Oliver Blake as Indian Chief Running Deer, and Frank Lackteen as his sidekick Broken Head.
The story is about Sam, an elderly man who leaves Prairie Falls, Wyoming to visit Janet, his daughter, in the small Massachusetts town of Pilgrim Hill, because he believes she needs his help. When he gets there he discovers that Janet’s husband Tom, a lawyer, is under great stress because his biggest client, Jonathan, is a nasty old man who is the wealthiest & most powerful man in town, who thinks everyone should live by his rules, and who is opposed to his daughter Debbie’s love for Steve. Sam arranges for Debbie & Steve to get together again, and then decides to make Jonathan “disappear” from the problem by performing a rain dance he learned from Indian medicine man Sitting Wolf back in Wyoming. Indeed, a hurricane then does make landfall at Pilgrim Hill, with Jonathan trapped on a small island just off the coast, by Sam’s design! The storm threatens Jonathan’s life, Sheriff Luke tries to arrest Sam for attempted manslaughter, and the rest of the story I can’t tell you because that would spoil the ending 😉