La vallée des fantômes

It's not quite a ghost town thatTom Keene and Merna Kennedy are due to inherit, but it isn't doing well since the gold mine petered out. Mitchell Harris discovers a rich vein, and wants to get Miss Kennedy's share, so he hires the galoot who rides into town, who turns out to be Tom Keene, to pretend to be Tom Keene. Between Keene's urging, threats of a gang that want to take over and some actual cash, Harris expects to become rich.

It's another of the underrated RKO B Westerns. TCM has been showing these recently in beautiful prints that lets the audience see Ted McCord's beautiful lighting, and there's lots of good humor in the script that director Fred Allen brings out. Tom Keene may never have escaped the westerns -- despite his appearance in the odd Ed Wood movie -- but he was a serious actor and could play the galoot as well as anyone shy of Gary Cooper.