Rocky Mountain Mystery

Randolph Scott is a mining engineer, with a letter to a dying mine owner, who has radium on his property. He meets deputy sheriff Chic Sales, who's trying to figure out what happened to an unidentified body. Scott goes on, and meets the bedridden George Marion, and his family, gathered around for his death. Then they start dying... and the will says that if they predecease him, their shares go to the survivors; they begin dying and disappearing, leaving Sales and Scott to figure out who is killing them.

It's a very good mystery, one of the Zane Grey westerns that Paramount was producing in this period, with some nice location shooting near Big Bear Lake, and a large stamping mill that portends a nice melodramatic ending. Sales has never been better, and it's hardly surprising, because there are some nice, long-lived performers for him to compete with: not only Marion, but Florence Roberts in a small role, and Mrs. Leslie Carter in a large one.

Charles Barton would not rank as anyone's idea of a great director, but he handles his cast and the settings very nicely, for a nice, creepy movie.