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Red Ryder (Allan Lane) convinces a treck of homesteaders to settle in
Paradise Valley, simply because the land is affordable. And while water
supply's not a given, with some smart dam building there shouldn't be much
of an issue, either. Pretty much everything's happy with this, only Bill
Hume (Gene Roth) tries to question Red's authority at every opportunity.
At first the community thrives until someone sabotages the dam, someone
starts stealing water, and other acts of sabotage happen as well. Now the
audience knows of course all this to be the doings of Bill Hume and his
brother Rufe (Mauritz Hugo), Red suspects them as well but lacks proof.
Enter Mr. Langley (Emmett Vogan), a businessman from the next town over,
Central City, who offers for his company to build a new, better dam, in
exchange for 50% of the homesteaders land, but in exchange they'll all
become stockholders. Red warns about this deal but his outvoted. And
anyways, he soon gets a job in Central City as a columnist for the local
newspaper where he's dubbed the "Cowboy Philosopher". Now the
newspaper's run by A.C. Blaine (Milton Kibbee), who's also the man behind
Langley's deal with the homesteaders, and he cleverly uses Red for his
propaganda. And then he, in league with Langley and the Humes, tricks the
homesteaders out of their water. But Bill Hume isn't an idiot, knowing
that helping Blaine will put him at odds with the homesteaders, he knocks
out Blaine, steals his money and enough evidence to put him to jail, then
tries to skip Paradise Valley, but is stopped by a posse after him, and
ultimately by Red, who makes sure Hume and Blaine get their just desserts
and the homesteaders get their water back. Robert Blake once again plays
Red's junior sidekick Little Beaver, but has very little impact on the
story as a whole. A pretty routine B-western that might go a
little above the casual viewers' heads with its rather complex scheme of
landgrabbing, but it's fair to say that most of the audience come for the
chases, shoot-outs and fights rather than an economically plausible story,
and of your typical western action, Homesteaders of Paradise Valley
has plenty. That said, the film also has very little to really stick with
one and is probably forgotten in a few days at the most - but at least
it's fun while it lasts.
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