One Man Law

Watched "One Man Law" (1932) with Buck Jones, Shirley Grey, Robert Ellis, Murdock MacQuarrie, and many more. Superb story, but told only middling well by director Lambert Hillyer. Usually Buck Jones is a wonderful actor, a gangling, though muscular, and very masculine, no nonsense sort of direct personality. Here he waffles a great deal in a shy manner around Shirley Grey and is nearly embarrassing in his attempts around her to try to show some affection. This occurs mostly in the beginning, and he's better later on. The story would have done better without Jones' love-making in the beginning. The rest is very interesting, and quite gripping. The story actually gets to the point where you see no way out for Jones at all in his predicament. He's a sheriff, but he must enforce a law that would make anyone angry! A land speculator has twice-sold - but only genuinely sold once! - land out west by way of dealers in Chicago. Now the people who bought the land from the Chicago-based baddies have come West to claim the land. Meanwhile, the people out west who are simply waiting for their deeds after having labored like dogs to work the land and own it, are being legally forced off these lands by the "rightful" owners. Jones is the law. He has to enforce this. Great story. Well told. Not always perfectly acted. Could have had better handling by Lambert Hillyer. Too bad. I'm a great fan of Jones in Westerns. This may have been an "A" from Columbia, but it plays more like a "B".

Buck Jones falls under the thrall of Robert Ellis, who has a scheme to have his land developed by farmers who think they own the land. He offers himself as a nice guy, returning to Buck his rig and horse lost in a rigged race. Everyone, including Buck, thinks Ellis is swell, until...

GetTV has been running a lot of early 1930s B westerns in magnificent prints. All too often, when looking at B westerns these days, you have to look at badly-printed multi-generational dupes. Although this one shows some chipping, the image quality is beautiful and except for a few stock shots shows beautiful composition and action shots.

Where this one falls a bit short is in the writing department. There's quite a bit of padding (there's a lot of silliness concerning runaway turkeys) and the usual annoying kid who is ingénue Shirley Grey's brother and who admires Buck enormously.

There's little that's terribly wrong with this movie and given some of the unwatchable prints that circulate, it's a pleasure. It's just that this one won't win any fans for B Westerns.