Bill Elliott is Charles Alderson, an easterner who heads west and winds up being rescued from an Indian attack by former lawyer turned rancher Windy Gibson (Gabby Hayes). They wind up throwing in together and creating one of the biggest ranches in Wyoming Territory.
But Alderson also encounters a setback when his wife dies giving birth to his daughter, named Karen after her mother. When she turns 9, he sends Karen back to Europe to get her education. Karen (Vera Ralston) returns the spitting image of his wife and quickly wins the affection of her father’s foreman Glenn Forrester (John Carroll).
Turns out Karen is far from the only new face in Wyoming Territory. Nesters are moving in and encroaching on the ranchers’ grazing land. They’re being organized by a man named Duke Lassiter (Albert Dekker), who has his eye on Alderson’s gal (Virginia Grey as Lila Regan) and cattle.
You see, Lassiter figures if he can stir up enough friction between the ranchers and nesters, he can rustle lots of cattle. The ranchers will simply blame the nesters. And, if they wind up committing crimes that land them in jail, all the better.
Review:
Well, we’ve seen this story play out before, haven’t we? Ranchers determined to hold onto land and cattle empires they fought so hard to create. Nesters just looking for enough land to get a start in a new land.
What makes this worth watching is the character played by Bill Elliott, the good guy in oh, so many B Westerns. Here, he’s not nearly so good. He uses his influence to have a murder charge thrown out of court. And, after someone has rustled part of his herd, he’s ready to hire a killer and his henchmen to mow down the nesters, with no proof that they were to blame for the rustling.
Those around him know he’s going too far. But his daughter and his fiancé care for him too much to stand up to him. His foreman, Forrester, does, and is run off the ranch as a result. The puts Karen in a position where she might have to choose between the two men in her life.
It all adds up to an average Elliott outing. As for Ralston, she plays Elliott’s wife in the film’s opening and his grown daughter when she returns from Europe. In between, the part of Karen Alderson is played by Louise Kane, young daughter of the director. She also appeared in another of his Westerns, “Oh, Susanna.”
Directed by:
Joseph Kane
Cast:
Bill Elliott … Charles Alderson
Vera Ralston … Karen Alderson
John Carroll … Glenn Forrester
Gabby Hayes … Windy Gibson
Albert Dekker … Duke Lassiter
Virginia Grey … Lila Regan
Maria Ouspesskaya … Maria
Grant Withers … Joe Sublette
Harry Woods … Ben Jackson
Minna Gombell … Quennie Lassiter
Dick Curtis … Ed Lassiter
Roy Barcroft … Sheriff Niles
Louise Kane … Karen, at age 9
Runtime: 88 min.
Memorable lines:
Charles Alderson: “I don’t suppose it’d be much of a job to raise cattle around here, would it?”
Windy Gibson: “Easy as picking fleas off a hummingbird with wool mittens on. All you gotta worry about is floods, droughts and blizzards. Nothing to it.”
Maria: “She is nine now Charles, and wild as the horses around here.”
Charles Alderson: “Yeah, and she sure can ride them, too.”
Maria: “And what else can she do?”
Duke Lassiter: “If I picked some flowers by the roadside, could I bring them up some night?”
Lila Regan: “Why don’t you take that up with Mr. Alderson? Then you won’t have to pick the flowers; your friends will pick them for you.”
Duke Lassiter: “Sorry, Alderson.”
Charles Alderson: “That’s alright.”
Lassiter: “I should know better than to bump into a murderer, shouldn’t I? Especially when the court’s just handed him a hunting license.”
Charles Alderson: “We seen you look and talk like a frightened man, Forrester. Which means you don’t belong with us. Because if the state or the army or the people expect to take anything from us, they’ve got to get it exactly like we got it: by using force. And with that kind of a fight coming up, Forrester, I expect you’d better backtrack it out of here.”
Forrester: “Coming from anybody else, I wouldn’t walk away from that. But you’re fixing to do yourself enough harm without me taking a punch at you.”
){kind=link}