Yellow Dust

Richard Dix had a good day. He struck gold with brand new partner Andy Clyde, rescued songbird Leila Hyams from a stagecoach robbery, and the two of them fell in love as fast as two leads can in a 69-minute feature. The evening was not so good, between saloon owner and head of the outlaws Onslow Stevens framing Dix for the job, and then talking a drunk Clyde out of the location of the strike before he can file a claim.

Dix was RKO's biggest star outside of Astaire & Rogers, but the way they kept him profitable was by making some well produced but cheap westerns, then an A production every year or two. That was a good way to make money for a few years, but it cut into the long-term value of their star. They would have had to invest money into a more expensive, riskier project. 1935 had seen the international co-production, TRANSATLANTIC TUNNEL, but the numbers on that had not been so good. So it was back to safe stuff, cowboy pictures, detective yarns and such, which relied on Dix' charisma, but didn't give him a chance to do anything to impress the critics. Then he ended his RKO career with a great role in THE GHOST SHIP and moved on to Columbia.