Drift Fence

Tom Keene meets Benny Baker at a rodeo. Baker is a greenhorn who is being cajoled into riding an unridable mustang. Keene takes his place and does it. Baker makes him a proposition. His uncle wants him to go to his ranch in Arizona and learn the cattle business from the ground up. If Keene will take his letter of introduction, he'll get $100, and Baker will inherit the ranch when his uncle dies. Keene isn't interested. He changes his mind when he hears Stanley Andrews' name. At the ranch he discovers there's rustling going on. The plan is to set up a drift fence to foil the rustlers. Rancher Katherine Demille is opposed.

It's another of the score of westerns that Paramount turned out from Zane Grey novels. But while earlier ones with Randolph Scott were clearly interesting A pictures, this one clearly falls into B territory, timing in at 56 minutes, and filled with several tropes of cheaper westerns. Was it always this, or was it cut to flinders by director Otto Lovering? He had a long career as an editor. While Keene clearly has charisma and enough acting chops for the A list, it's clearly a disappointment. With Buster Crabbe, Leif Ericson, Richard Carle, and Irving Bacon.