Beyond the Rockies

Wanted bandit Black Jack and three compatriots are offered straight jobs by Betty Allen. The Allens are fighting off a bullying cattle ranch neighbor run by Ruby Sherman.

This is B-cowboy fare. There is some riding, some shooting, some singing, and some poor acting. As much as I like the riding and the cattle driving, this is nothing more than a B-cowboy western. The actors are probably fine for what they are. When they are simply standing around and acting, the directions are stiff and static. I divide this in two. While they are on horses, I like it. When they get off the horses and start talking, I start to drift.

Tom Keene plays a US Deputy Marshal undercover with a pair of raffish sidekicks Julian Rivero and Ernie Adams who sign on to William Welsh's ranch to find out who's been doing the cattle rustling. Rochelle Hudson is Welsh's daughter and she kind of likes Keene. But the next door neighboring ranch is run by Marie Wells who's boss lady of the rustlers and the ranch is a blind.

In fact Keene's cover is nearly blown when he drops his badge. Why would he not store the badge in a safe place until needed is a mystery best explained in a seance with the writers.

A lot of the comedy is Falstaff like as Rivero and Adams who don't know they've hooked up with a marshal keep padding their outlaw resume. They can be pretty funny at times.

Decent horse opera for the front row kids of 1932.

Jack (tom keene) and his gang take jobs as cattle hands, but things go bad quickly. Rustlers are giving them a hard time, and there's murder in the air. Rochelle hudson is betty, daughter of the ranch owner. An rko shortie at just 54 minutes. Things move right along. Short on plot, but bar brawls aplenty. We're not really sure if jack and his gang are good guys, or bad guys... they keep hinting at past holdups, but every now and then jack says, "remember, we're on the level now!" it's okay. Mostly explained at the end. Several scenes filmed in the beautiful alabama hills, lone pine, next to mount whitney. And while it's a real short, it's in pretty good shape for a film 90 years old. Directed by fred allen.. imdb only lists eight films directed by him. Died young at 58 from heart issues.

Westerns of the time were generally all B-movies, meaning they would occupy the bottom half of any double feature. I imagine sometimes there were double features just of B-westerns. Here's one for the history books. Near the start, a stage driver uses the exclamation, "Hopping Horned Toads!", which Yosemite Sam later turned into "Great Horney Toads". Singing cowboys was a fad back then. Even John Wayne was appearing as "Singing Sandy" in the Lone Star/Mascot westerns. Here we have a cowboy quartet, with "Lavender Joe" (!) accompanying on guitar. Their theme song has lyrics referring to themselves as "dancing caballeros." There's a reference to a "perfume-smelling foreman." And once in town, this quartet heads for the "Rainbow Bar." I kid you not. The villain in this piece is a woman, so as possibly to justify the basic sexism of the western genre. The plot holds no major surprises, and true to form, the film only runs about an hour. But there's plenty more where this came from.

Another decent Tom Keene western in which he must help the pretty gal hold onto the ranch. In this case it's Rochelle Hudson, like Keene a dedicated actor who never quite made the transition to the top ranks, although both are kindly remembered by the fans.

These early RKO B westerns (in fact, Radio-Pathe, with the Pathe rooster crowing atop the world) are technically interesting pieces. They are simply plotted and written, but with plenty of real talent behind the camera and the prints that show up on Turner Classic Movies show off the fine cinematography of Ted McCord and daring stunt work of Yakima Canutt. Fans of the singing cowboy subgenre should have a look, because this is how they started, with the rough buckaroos relaxing at the camp fire or serenading a senorita.