The Utah Kid

An expert rider infiltrates a gang of rodeo crooks.

Reviewer boblipton's correct—this is a lesser matinée western. But it does have the great Bob Steele. He may be only 5'5'', however his short stature is pure bundled energy. Nobody in these oaters puts more vim and vigor into hard riding and choreographed brawls than Steele, and he makes audiences believe it. Both are on good display here. For Gibson, I expect the movie was above all a payday since he does little more than observe and comment. But then he is well into middle-age (52).

Boblipton's also right about the poorly blended stock footage. Still, for those who enjoy pageantry, it's fun watching all those vintage cowboys and Indians parade across the rodeo grounds from a time long ago when they were likely the real thing. Anyhow, I liked scoping out the winsome Beatrice Gray who is quite lively and charming. So, despite the poor production values and leaden script, there remain several compensating features.

Hoot Gibson plays the old Marshall who sends Bob Steele out to deal with some bad 'uns who have some sort of scam going on in rodeos in this competent but uninspiring B western from Monogram. It's clearly intended for the Saturday matinée market.

Hoot doesn't get to do much, mostly stand around and react, but Bob Steele is okay as the feller who speaks low, speaks slow and doesn't say much. There are a couple of good action sequences -- the stagecoach sequence has some fine riding and stunt work -- but the overall effect is that it's largely a waste of time eked out with stock footage from other western films, some of which look like they were pulled out Edison actualities from the 1900s and fitted out with random crowd noises. Efforts to match film stocks result in cinematography that is blurry and patchy.

Even for the cheaper B westerns of the era, this one is hard to take. I'd avoid it.