Ambush Valley

Silent film cowboy Bob Custer whose career foundered when sound came in shows us part of the reason in Ambush Valley. I swear I could have done his dialog better.

And that's a pity as far as this film is concerned. It's quite a bit above the usual Saturday matinée fare. It was the story of a range feud started by some killings.

Big rancher Jimmy Aubrey has lovely daughter Victoria Vinton who is engaged to local sheriff Bob Custer and one punk of a son in Eddie Phillips. Before he shoots a young homesteader in the back we see him murder two others. Since he did that second one in front of witnesses, the sheriff even with impending ties to the family has his duty clear.

But Aubrey and friends make it real hard for Custer to bring Phillips in. And the homesteaders led by the dead boy's mother Vane Calvert have had just about enough.

Calvert gives the most interesting performance in the film. In a bigger budgeted film which this story deserved, I could see her part being played by Jane Darwell.

All this one needed was a better lead.

You get two former silent screen stars for the price of one with this ultra low-budget Reliable Western (three if you count that Jack-of-all-trades Denver Dixon, whose name is misspelled "Dickson" in the credits). But while Wally Wales, here playing a beleaguered nester, went on to become a busy character player under the name of Hal Taliaferro, the overly stoic Bob Custer failed to appeal to sound audiences and his three Reliable Westerns proved the end of a starring career begun back in 1924. Custer is his wooden cigar store Indian self in Ambush Valley but is of course given less than stellar material by director Franklyn Shamray, who is actually producer Bernard B. Ray in disguise. That Ambush Valley remains as entertaining as it is depends solely on the supporting cast, especially mustachioed Eddie Phillips as one of those wastrel sons endemic to melodramas like this, and Vane Calvert as the redoubtable Mr. Wales' vengeful maw. Founded in 1934 by movie pioneers Bernard B. Ray and Harry S. Webb, small-scale Reliable Pictures Corp. issued a total of 45 films during its 3½-year existence, including five 2-reel "Bud'n Ben" Westerns. The studio was located at Sunset Blvd. and Beachwood Dr. in Hollywood and later became home to the Three Stooges and the Columbia short subject department. It remains a rental facility to this day.