Riders of the Law

Riders of the Law (1922)

** (out of 4)

A rather boring Western finds drifters Jack Meadows (Jack Hoxie) and Toby (Frank Rice) finding a Sheriff who has been shot and left for dead. The two men decide to ride into town to try to find the men who did this and they finally track the guy down but he's a wolf in sheep's clothing because he now has the Sheriff's daughter (Marin Sais) believing that something else happened to her father. It's up to Jack and Toby to try and figure out the truth and convince the daughter of what really happened. There's were so many Westerns made during this period it's probably impossible trying to list them from best to worst simply because so many are now missing. From what I've seen this one here isn't nearly the worst but at the same time there's really nothing here that makes it stand out to where you'd rank it as one of the best either. I think the biggest problem is the screenplay, which gives us several characters but not a single one is all that interesting. This starts with both drifters who just never have much chemistry together and their friendship seems more forced that natural. The daughter of the Sheriff, of course an eventual love interest, isn't any better either but this is mainly due to the screenplay making her a complete idiot who can never see the obvious in front of her. Another idiot is the Sheriff himself who is tracking down this moonshine gang yet never realizes that his "friend" is in with them. There's really not too much action here either, although we do get the typical shoot out towards the end as well as a couple brief scenes. None of them are all that entertaining but I will admit that the "lake game" was a rather interesting scene. This was the first film I had seen with Hoxie and I wasn't overly impressed, although I'm certainly not going to write him off after just one movie. I actually somewhat enjoyed Rice as the comic sidekick because he managed to get a couple laughs including the highlight of the film where he sits down on a hot horse shoe and what follows is pretty funny. Sais, then real-life wife to Hoxie, doesn't do much with her part. The one really interesting thing for film buffs is that future make-up legend Jack Pierce plays the lead moonshiner here and he also worked as Assistant Director. Thank God his acting and directing career didn't take off or who knows what might have happened with those Universal monsters. He actually turns in a somewhat good performance in his small bit.

According to the DVD's blurb, "cowboy star Jack Hoxie appeared in over a hundred silent westerns in the 1910s and 1920s." Writer-director Robert N. Bradbury's "Riders of the Law" (1922) would be quite a watchable entry in this league if it were not for the rather dupey 4/10 print on offer, particularly as the assistant director is none other than legendary make-up man, Jack P. Pierce, who also appears on camera as a nasty piece of work called Pete Gushard, the first of the whisky runners trailing "the high places near the Canadian border where mystery and romance are wont to dwell" (to quote Mr Bradbury). However, despite the purple prose, the story has its fair share of entertaining plot twists and action. The players, led by the ingratiating hero Hoxie, comic relief partner Frank Rice, lovely heroine Marin Sais (married to Hoxie at the time), and most particularly Pat Harmon, a charismatic "wolf in sheep's clothing", also do their bit to keep interest at a high level. Executive producer Anthony J. Xydias has given this "B" solid production values, including some arresting on-location lensing by photographer Bert Longenecker.