Knights of the Range

Outlaw Frayne is a member of Gamecock's rustlers. When he saves Holly Ripple and Cappy from Heaver's gun, she gives him a job offer and a chance to go straight. Now bringing back Ripple's money from the cattle drive, he is tested when his old gang attacks.

Knights of the Range is based on a Zane Grey story and stars Russel Hayden as an outlaw turned foreman. He's quite likeable and does well in the role. Jean Parker adds some star quality as the lady rancher, but of course, Victor Jory steals the scene as a villain - a role he can do sleepwalking. It's not a typical endless chase and shootout oater and an emphasis is on character, their motivation and plot. There's some action but only after a build-up of the plot and character. Personally, I found it a bit slow but good acting and characterisation keep things interesting.

Saw this at the Movie History Museum in Lone Pine California in 2011; Lone Pine was, and still is, a major filming location for westerns and commercials, due to its varied landscape in different parts of the Owens Valley, lake­-bed, joshua trees, and giant granite boulders. Zane Grey had written many books, and about half of them were turned into films. This one from 1940 has great sound quality, but less-than-great picture quality. At just over an hour, they squeeze a lot of action and story in this "oater" or "oat burner" (so named, since much of the action is one group chasing another group on horseback.) Due to a low budget and being filmed outdoors on location, the picture quality and the script suffer. A story of a girl in the wild west, Holly (played by Jean Parker) inherits a ranch, but the cattle are being rustled off her property. She crosses paths with Renn (Russell Hayden), who may not be who he seems to be. She needs the help of someone to save the cattle, and she thinks she has found her man.

Also appearing are the Kings Men, a group of singing cowhands, who keep breaking into song; they sang in films for about 20 years, from 1929 - 1949. Directed by Lesley Selander, expert director of westerns... this one one of the SEVEN he made in 1940 alone. Some pretty big names in this one; Parker was "Beth" in Little Women, and Hayden would go on to be the sidekick in Hopalong Cassidy. Also keep an eye out for J. Farrell MacDonald, who was in a TON of westerns - he plays Cappy, the ranch foreman in this one. Looks like this didn't make it to DVD, but maybe Turner Classics will show it. It has all the elements of a classic western, but watch it for the interesting California scenery.

Harry Sherman, the original producer of the Hopalong Cassidy series at Paramount, occasionally was allowed to produce other westerns and Knights of the Range is one of his. In fact he got to use Russell Hayden and Britt Wood who were Hoppy's current saddle pals as players in this. Add to that Victor Jory who was a villain in a few of the Hoppy films and you practically have a Cassidy oater without Bill Boyd.

Russell Hayden is a likable young cattle rustler who's having some angst about the outlaw business, but it's all he knows. When the owner of a big cattle ranch he was rustling from is killed, he leaves the gang albeit with the blessings of leader Morris Ankrum who treats him like a son.

Victor Jory moves in and takes over the gang and Hayden's duty becomes clear. You haven't seen too many B westerns if you can't figure the rest out.

Hayden at one time was considered prime material for bigger things in the Hollywood cowboy world. However he could never rise above being Lucky Jenkins, Hopalong Cassidy's sidekick. But he certainly was good at that, the young occasionally hotheaded cowboy that Hoppy had to explain the given situation to.

The story is from the pen of Zane Grey our greatest American western writer. Grey's books still sell even if films aren't made from them any more. And he was so prolific, I seriously doubt if the movies filmed all of his work.

Knights of the Range played the bottom half of many a double bill, especially in Red state America. I can see this one at the bottom half of some Gary Cooper film Paramount would have released. Would have fit nicely.