The Western Code

"The Western Code" is a Tim McCoy film I wanted to see, as I've seen most of his westerns and have enjoyed them very much. However, the only copies I could find are on YouTube and they are a mess! The sound is so poor, I needed to turn the sound WAY up on the TV. Also, at 47 minutes you assume at least 10 minutes were trimmed from the original print. IMDB says it's 58 minutes (the times listed on IMDB are occasionally wrong, but this one seems to probably be correct). In this condition, is it still worth seeing?

The story begins with Tim arriving in a mighty unfriendly town. He ends up shooting a man in self-defense...and the honest sheriff keeps the local baddie and his men from trying to get revenge. Well, it turns out Tim can more than take care of himself, as he was a famous Texas Ranger. He's in town to investigate some nasty business with the evil boss...and part of his dirty tricks involve stealing an inheritance from two grown children. But to make it worse, he also tries to frame them for murder! Can Tim manage to get to the bottom of all this?

In this case, the missing 10 minutes or so WAS important and the film felt rushed and anticlimactic. I didn't enjoy it all that much and my review is strictly for the 47 minute version.

Pretty good McCoy programmer, more plot heavy than most, but with a neat twist ending. Deputy Tim's got to figure out how to keep the Loomis ranch from falling into the hands of bad guys, and keep Polly Loomis' bother from shooting bad guy Grindel who's romancing her. There's some hard riding, not much fast shooting (except for the beginning), or flying fists. However, the one brawl looks more like a real one than the usual choreographed sock-on- the-jaw. And catch Tim's 10-gallon hat, bigger than anything this side of Pikes Peak. Also, catch two oddities in the cast. Dwight Frye of Dracula (1931) and Frankenstein (1931) where he played deformed characters; also, Mischa Auere who played "mad Russians" in a number of comedies of the 30's and 40's. Not exactly the types you expect to find on horseback. All in all, the 60-minutes is a decent programmer, if nothing special.