"Secret Valley" was a happy surprise, offering a really fun venture into the contemporary West (1930's) with a strong dose of 1930's gangsterdom. I expected a throw-away Richard Arlen B-picture effort, being that it is only a 58-minute western. But Arlen has his rugged but amiable veneer here, melded nicely into a pleasant coupling with Virginia Grey, the girl with the luminous eyes. She plays her part directly and with many changes in tone and demeanor.
One really gets worked up into the excitement of an old West cattle drive and roundup in the film, all of which is contrasted with the sordid approach to life of a New York gangster finding himself out of his element. The beautiful Sierras are in nearly constant view while the cattle seem to be omnipresent, too. The movie indeed does move along at an economical B-western pace, and the romance is underplayed here, too, as one would expect. But production values are good and the acting is sharp. There is little to fault in this picture and it holds up nicely; it might even spur some of us to a reading of the original book by author Harold Bell Wright. Anyway, most fans of movies and particularly westerns from the 1930'a will find this one quite entertaining and even lamentably too short.
