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A mysterious masked bandit, the Night Rider, is roaming the countryside,
robbing innocent ranchers of their earnings. Good thing that Jim Blake (Harry
Carey) is around, who together with wannabe caballero Manuel (Julian Rivero)
& tourist Altoony (Gabby Hayes) sets out to capture the gangster, but to
that end he has to pose as an outlaw, & only the sheriff (Walter Shumway),
an old frioend of his, knows that he is really an undercover lawman. Barton
(Tom London), saloon owner, part-time badman & employee of the Night Rider
on the other hand sees Jim as a bag full of opportunities & gets him a job
at the ranch of paralized Dan Rogers (Jack Weatherby) & his sister Barbara
(Elinor Fair) - just so he can have an eye on him. & at that ranch, Jim
finds first clues that might lead him to the night Rider, including a secret
passageway leading from the ranch to an abandoned mine. Barton however finds
a way to pin the next crime of the Night Rider on Jim & gets him arrested -
which isn't really that much of a deal since the sheriff knows Jim's identity
anyway & not only lets him escape but also helps him fake some evidence
that Jim really is the Night Rider - & because Barton & gang
have no idea about the identity of the real Night Rider, they believe him, not
knowing that the tables are turned on them ... & soon they are all rounded
up by the sheriff & his posse - which even gets the real Nuight Rider out
of his hiding place, and it is ... paralyzed Dan of course who isn't paralized
at all of course but has only faked his handicap to escape suspicion. &
after a wild chase, he is brought to justice too, & all that is left for
Jim to do is to get romantically involved with Barbara ... In the
1910's & 20's, Harry Carey (or Cheyenne Harry, as he was then called) was a
popular cowboy actor, in the 1930'a however, when the genre in general took a
plunge, he fell - despite the occasional big picture like Trader Horne -
on harder times. With Carey though the reason was not that he couldn't adapt to
the new sound medium - his acting style actually translated beautifully into
the talkies - but because he was quite visibly a man past his prime. So Carey
had to hook up with smaller outfits like Supreme who produced their
movies on the cheap & could hope to still make enough money back thanks to
Carey's drawing power. The cheapness shows though in a rather careless
direction, sloppy action & a rather boring & incoherent screenplay.
Harry Carey however is charismatic enough to still carry the weak movie, a
charisma that would grant him character roles even after his days of being a
leading man were definitely over.
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