As with every 1930s B-western antique, your enjoyment of this movie’s thrills ‘n’ spills depends largely on how much you like the star. It’s Harry Carey, 55 years old and a twenty-year film veteran at this point. He’s a sturdy old mustang who’s completely comfortable in a ten-gallon hat. He’s probably acted in this very same story before. Pretty much all of the old western heroes did, too. It’s the one where an honorable man gets wrongly accused of a crime (in this case, a murder) and then works to clear his name even if it means getting cozy with a band of outlaws so he can learn the truth. Notable here is that one of the main bad guys is an Asian mystery man called “The General” who’s shown in shadow. Yep, the Yellow Peril managed to invade even the Old West in movies at the time, though it’s shoehorned in to the whole affair and doesn’t do much with it. The whole enchilada wraps up in under an hour.
Check out Gabby Hayes in one of his earliest featured roles. He’s seven years younger than Harry Carey, but looks seventeen years older and is already playing the grizzled old frontier man sidekick persona for which he’d become famous in the next few decades.