Fighting for Justice

That's the first thing you notice about Tim McCoy: that's a mighty tall hat you're wearing. Doesn't it blow off in the wind? Although McCoy's MGM westerns had ended with the coming of sound, this Columbia effort, about a man who returns to restart his father's ranch on land that all the locals think belongs to Lafe McKee, moves along like an MGM effort perhaps of a year or so earlier. The compositions, lighting and set cameras are there, although there is a brief camera movement when cowboy comic Fuzzy Knight heads over to the piano.

What strikes you most about this Columbia western is that it is carefully, almost elegantly made by Otto Brower, who spent a decade turning out movies like this for Columbia, then headed to Fox as a second unit director on major projects and was moving back into the main chair on major projects when he died in 1946. The movie's pace is slow and deliberate and builds gradually to a full head of steam. A fine piece of work.