Jack Perrin is drifting, looking for a job. Al Bridge doesn't have any open spots, then he does. However, big-hearted Jack, who rescues some Indians from Bridge's henchmen, doesn't seem to get the idea that all the thievery and brigandage is at the behest of Al, until he stops Lane Chandler and pal from robbing the express office, and they claim he was the thief. He escapes from Marshal Murdock MacQuarrie, and it isn't until Bridge explains the situation to him in words of one syllables that Perrin begins to plot to stop the bad guys.
The pacing of this B Western from Reliable Pictures is slow and dull. It begins with some men dancing a jig for more than a quarter of a minute, then the camera pans sluggishly to the bar. Later, the bad guys pursue Perrin on horseback for a minute and a half. There is a palpable pause between each actor's lines; in Bridge's performance, this sounds thoughtful and sarcastic. For everyone else, it sounds dull-witted.
Fight sequences are likewise dull. No one seems to know how to throw a punch, and Perrin can defeat however many opponents he has, because they always come at him one at a time. True, the final fight sequence has the traditional group of rescuers (led by leading lady Blanche Mehaffey in jodhpurs -- apparently they let her dress as she wished) alternate with Perrin facing three bad guys, but he manages to subdue all of them with his fists well before the rescuers arrive.
Editing is likewise haphazard. I'm poor at picking up goofs, but there's one sequence in which I heard director Bernard B. Ray issue instructions to his performers.
Yet this was considered good enough to go out to the public, via the States Rights system in the US and Equity British Films in the UK! Clearly the situation could and did not last. Perrin ceased to be a cowboy star when he sued the producers and the courts agreed that they owed him the money. By 1937 he was reduced to extra work. The producer and director scattered, to the lowest remaining rungs of the industry: PRC. The time when slow, slovenly work like this was past.
The pacing of this B Western from Reliable Pictures is slow and dull. It begins with some men dancing a jig for more than a quarter of a minute, then the camera pans sluggishly to the bar. Later, the bad guys pursue Perrin on horseback for a minute and a half. There is a palpable pause between each actor's lines; in Bridge's performance, this sounds thoughtful and sarcastic. For everyone else, it sounds dull-witted.
Fight sequences are likewise dull. No one seems to know how to throw a punch, and Perrin can defeat however many opponents he has, because they always come at him one at a time. True, the final fight sequence has the traditional group of rescuers (led by leading lady Blanche Mehaffey in jodhpurs -- apparently they let her dress as she wished) alternate with Perrin facing three bad guys, but he manages to subdue all of them with his fists well before the rescuers arrive.
Editing is likewise haphazard. I'm poor at picking up goofs, but there's one sequence in which I heard director Bernard B. Ray issue instructions to his performers.
Yet this was considered good enough to go out to the public, via the States Rights system in the US and Equity British Films in the UK! Clearly the situation could and did not last. Perrin ceased to be a cowboy star when he sued the producers and the courts agreed that they owed him the money. By 1937 he was reduced to extra work. The producer and director scattered, to the lowest remaining rungs of the industry: PRC. The time when slow, slovenly work like this was past.