Secret Valley

Secret Valley probably got a lot more exposure than most B films of its kind due to producer Sol Lesser getting major studio 20th Century Fox to release this film. Darryl Zanuck must have owed Sol Lesser a big favor.

Still Secret Valley is a run of the mill modern western set in Nevada where Virginia Grey has gone for a divorce from gangster Norman Willis. As she explains to the first lawyer she consults Russell Hicks, they were married only two hours before she found out who and what he was. That should have qualified for an annulment.

When her second lawyer Jack Mulhall suggests her hiding out at a friend's ranch as opposed to some dude ranch that caters to folks establishing residence to take advantage of Nevada's divorce laws, it's Richard Arlen's place she winds up at.

Secret Valley was once again one of those films that had potential had it been done at a major studio with better care. It lurches from comedy to drama without any smooth transition. Still it does have some good moments. A lot of the comedy provided by Arlen's Chinese cook Willie Fung.

Secret Valley is an all right film, but nothing to get up at three in the morning to catch.

The short plot line shown on this page reads: "Rancher (Arlen) entertains girl (Grey) in Nevada to get a divorce. Then her gangster husband (MULLHALL) shows up."(more)

Hmmm...the summary writer thinks that her gangster husband was played by Norman Willis and not by Jack Mulhall. And the summary writer is correct. He is correct because he has the film, watched the film, knows the difference between Jack Mulhall and Norman Willis...and does not rely on plot lines submitted by contributors who use the (quite-often incorrect) A.F.I. plot lines as their source.

Mulhall plays the man who, thanks to Virginia Grey's character, provides the loan-money to Richard Arlen's ranch-owner character to save his ranch from being foreclosed on.

"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.