Thanks for the memories!

Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

Blistering performances.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

It's a truism, more true in Hollywood than anywhere else, that the book is better than the movie.Not, I'm finding frequently, when it comes to Zane Grey books."Mysterious Rider" was the rather generic title of Grey's book that was made as "Mark of the Avenger," also a rather generic title.Again, Maurice Geraghty turned an excellent story into an even better screenplay, with enjoyable dialog moving along the exciting action.Douglas Dumbrille as a cowboy ... I still am having some difficulty fully accepting it, but by gosh he was great! He was as at ease as any long-time cowboy star and thoroughly believable, because he was a star-quality actor, one of the best.Sidney Toler, whom I had seen once recently in a similar best-pal role, still surprised me: He was perfect!He and Dumbrille are just excellent actors, likable and believable in roles that are not what they were or became famous for. Excellent.Russ Hayden is again a good-looking, likable, downright perfect cowboy, a fine actor in parts like this, and who should have become one of the biggest cowboy stars.There are other superb actors, and some familiar cowboy faces, that make this an almost perfect movie, one I watched in a rather poor-quality print at YouTube, but which I would watch again.There might be better prints around, and I hope you find one, but I really hope you get to see this excellent B western, well directed, well photographed motion picture that should leave you as it did me, thoroughly satisfied and ready for more.

I noticed another reviewer gave this one a 10. Let's just say that we do not agree on the merits of this B-movie. My reasons for thinking it's a pretty shabby film is the bizarre casting of characters as well as too many silly B-movie clichés.The film begins with Pecos Bill (Douglass Dumbrille) and his partner (Sidney Toler) going undercover at a ranch. Only later do you learn that it was Pecos Bill's ranch and it had been stolen from him decades ago--and he was back to set things right. Now Bill was not coming to have shootouts and the like--his daughter was raised by the new owner and Bill wanted to proved that this man and his son were nothing but a couple of nogoodnicks. Not surprisingly, by the end, they've set things right and set off in the setting sun.Let's start with the casting. Dumbrille ALWAYS seemed to play well-cultured men--usually baddies. Putting this man with his patrician voice out west just seemed bizarre and ill-cast. Toler is known to most old film buffs as the second Charlie Chan--also hardly the sort you'd see in a western--though he wasn't bad in comic relief. But you really could not readily accept either one for who they were supposed to be.The clichés were many. A few of the sillier ones I'll mention. In one scene, one guy has his gun drawn on the other--but drops his guns so they can duke it out like men. In real life, he would have just shot the guy--no questions asked. Later, when Pecos has his guns on the baddie, he gives the baddie a chance to draw his--again, normal folks would have just blasted him. The dumbest cliché, however, and it was so predictable, was when one of the bad guys turned yellow and TOLD the baddest guy "I'm giving up"--and you KNOW that as soon as he says this the really, really bad guy would kill his sniveling partner! And, finally, like so many westerns, the characters are complete or nearly complete fiction. There never was a real person named Pecos Bill. All in all, while not a terrible film, it isn't a very good one--and a very cheap one to boot.

Between cranking out Hopalong Cassidy movies at Paramount, Harry Sherman got this Zane Grey novel adapted into a film. Utilizing the same sets that Hoppy did, Pop Sherman turned of all people into a cowboy hero, Douglass Dumbrille.This definitely rounds out the career resume of this character actor, to be cast as the cowboy hero, he who has played so many memorable villains in film history. Two years earlier Dumbrille played his most memorable serious villain as the lawyer Mr. Cedar in Mr. Deeds Goes To Town and three years after this film, Dumbrille would be his most memorable comic villain as the Marx Brothers foil in The Big Store.Here Dumbrille is cast as Pecos Bill a notorious bandit who was forced into that life because he was framed for a murder. He had to abandon his ranch and small daughter 20 years ago to his foreman who took over the property. After a stage holdup Dumbrille gets nostalgic for the old place and he and his sidekick Sidney Toler decide to visit the old homestead incognito and maybe gain for the daughter her rightful inheritance.The girl has grown up into Charlotte Field and she's got both the new owner's son Weldon Heyburn and foreman Russell Hayden after her. The new owner is played by Stanley Andrews and there's Monte Blue in the cast as well who figures in things quite prominently.There's a bit more plot if somewhat contrived than is normal for a B western of the time in The Mysterious Rider. But with the exception of Douglass Dumbrille, the rest of these character actor fit comfortably in the roles they are normally cast.And as for Douglass Dumbrille, I could almost get used to him as a good guy.

There is more than adequate financing for this Paramount effort, fourth cinematic interpretation of the Zane Grey novel, second with sound, and producer Harry "Pop" Sherman, creator of the William Boyd starring Hopalong Cassidy series, utilizes the extra funding to mount a generally well-crafted piece, although fiscal considerations cause a change in the film's lead as veteran supporting player Douglass Dumbrille replaces an always bothersome George Bancroft due to the latter's customary excessive salary demands. In this most faithful version to the original, stage nurtured Dumbrille is cast as Pecos Bill, a masked Robin Hood figure of the old west, a cover for his true persona, Ben Wade, who was falsely accused of murder 20 years before. Accompanied by his comical partner Frosty (the future Charlie Chan, Sydney Toler), Ben returns to the crime location to exact retribution, a risky business, but he has come as well to see his grown daughter and is able to assist her to avoid an inappropriate marriage while committing to her true love, a ranch hand played by Russell Hayden. The film moves along crisply under the well detailed direction of reliable Lesley Selander until a flagrant continuity flaw occurs involving Frosty, not recovering, while additionally a viewer will find it difficult to imagine Dumbrille in his vigorous role, despite excellent stunt work and valuable participation by cinematographer Russell Harlan, editor Sherman Rose, and old hand Western players Monte Blue, Earl Dwire and Glenn Strange.