Wallace Beery is Trigger Bill, the baddest of the bad men in Arizona until he gets a shock when a stagecoach passenger he robbed of a gold watch shows up in Brimstone.
The passenger (Dennis O’Keefe) is a prize fighter named Jeff Burton and known as “The Kanarsy Kid.” And he wants the gold watch back because it carries a photo of his late mother inside.
When Trigger Bill drops the watch onto the poker table, it pops open, revealing the photograph. It’s then that Trigger Bill realizes Jeff is his long-lost son.
And with plans to marry pretty Loretta Douglas (Virginia Bruce), Jeff wants to help tame Arizona. He takes a job as tax collector to help finance an education as a lawyer.
All of which puts Trigger Bill in a peculiar situation. Suddenly, he finds himself doing his best to protect his son as he enforces the law. The complications only grow when silver is discovered in Brimstone and Blackjack McCreedy (Bruce Cabot) shows up, gunning for the tax collector believed responsible for his brother’s death.
Review:
Virginia Bruce is lovely as the leading lady, Dennis O’Keefe spirited as a young man who shows no fear when he should and Lewis Stone does a nice turn as an aging lawyer tempted by money.
Unfortunately, Beery’s antics don’t play nearly as well as it likely did in the 1930s, when he starred in a series of Westerns. Nor does the movie’s mix of action and humor. And this film suffers from a downright silly ending.
This marked one of the first major roles for O’Keefe, who had played bit parts in dozens of films.
Directed by:
J. Walter Ruben
Cast:
Wallace Beery … Trigger Bill
Virginia Bruce … Loretta Douglas
Dennis O’Keefe … Jeff Burton
aka ‘The Kanarsy Kid”
Joseph Calleia … Portuguese Ben
Lewis Stone … Jackson Douglas
Guy Kibbee … Francis “Eight Ball” Harrigan
Bruce Cabot … Blackjack McCreedy
Cliff Edwards … Buzz McCreedy
Guinn Williams … Vulch McCreedy
Arthur Hohl … Dod Laramie
Noah Beery … Ambrose Crocker
John Qualen … Locl
Charley Grapevine … Barney Lane
Robert Barrat … Hank Summers
aka:
Arizona Bill
Runtime: 89 min.
Memorable lines:
Eight Ball Harrigan, to his boxer, ‘The Kanarsy Kid’ on heading to California: “Six months from now, we’ll be laying out under the palm trees, picking our teeth with bars of gold.”
Jeff Burton (The Kanarsy Kid), upon spotting buffalo for the first time: “Look at them cows.”
Eight Ball Harrigan: “Those aren’t cows. They’re mountain goats.”
Trigger Bill: “Son or no son, I don’t know how far my fatherly feelings are going to stretch the next time he petitions me for a funeral.”
Jeff Burton, to a settler leaving lawless Arizona: “You’re going to let Trigger Bill get away with all this? And you ain’t gonna do nothing about it?”
Mr. Grant: “Well, I could take a shot at him and have my whole family wiped out.”
Loretta Douglas to Jeff: “Here, you, come back here. I won’t have you taking any suicide job. You’re not much, but I prefer you without any lead in you.”
Trigger Bill to Mr. Douglas about being Jeff’s dad: “Lawyer, if you ever reveal this to a living soul, you and your daughter won’t be able to recognize each other’s corpses.”
Blackjack, about the silver rush: “So, you ain’t going along?”
Trigger Bill: “No. I can think of less degrading ways of making money than having to dig for it.”
Blackjack McCreedy: “You lied to me!”
Trigger Bill: “Of course, I lied to you. I felt like lying. I regular relished it. You better start relishin’ it to, Blackjack, pretty pronto. You’re gettin’ bigger than your boots.”
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