The Light of Western Stars

Richard Arlen is trailing the mysterious man who killed his friend. First, though, he needs to get drunk. While doing so, he says he'll marry the first woman he sees, who turns out to be Mary Brian. That's lucky, because it might have been Harry Green in a dress; Green is in this movie as the comic relief. Miss Brian is in this movie because she's here to take over her father's ranch now that he's dead, which is in the hands of Fred Kohler. You don't think...!

This is one of the many Zane Grey westerns that Paramount filmed from 1930-1940, and while the writing looks good -- Grover Jones & William Slavens McNutt, with some uncredited work by Joseph Mankiewicz -- there's some very odd about the editing. At first I thought I was looking at a verion which had been badly butchered for a reissue in the 1950s, but it came in at exactly the listed running time. Given that. it looks like another poorly recorded outdoor talkie, with Arlen still not used to speaking in films. Green's Jewish peddler isn't particularly amusing, and Regis Toomey is present for a blandly unthreatening love triangle. Even worse, the pacing is start-and-stop after the initial bar room scene. For completists only.