This 1931 Monogram feature seems closer to a mid-week western melodrama than the typical Saturday matinee cowboy film to which most viewers are accustomed. Bill Cody is cast here as Oklahoma Jim Kirby, a gambler who has come to run the tables of chance at the Indian Range Trading Post and Saloon, operated by Lacey (William Desmond) - but in reality owned by Lacey's deceased partner's city-bred niece. In reviewing the film at the time of its release, Variety's critic opined as how "Bill Cody always looks more like a matinee idol than a western star, but he gets by with it more effectively in this try as a suave gambling shark from down Oklahomy way." All the trade reviews at the time were generally positive, and the film is, indeed, despite a complex plot, one of the better entries in Cody's Monogram series.
Director Harry Fraser is also credited as co-writer of the story, in which an Indian princess kills herself after an unnamed white man has compromised her honor. Oklahoma Jim, the gambler, seeks to protect the rights of a pretty lady from Boston (Marion Burns), legal owner of the trading post coveted by her unprincipled adversaries. In doing so, the identity of the villain who mistreated the chief's daughter is brought to light. The film is among Mr. Fraser's better efforts, both as director and writer. Cody, Desmond, John Elliott, and Ed Brady turn in good performances. Young Andy Shuford, co-star of the series, is cast as the child survivor of a massacre who is raised by the Indians, but the role is written and played as though he were a contemporary youngster.
Iron Eyes Cody and J. W. Cody are both cast as members of the outraged tribe. Decades after the film's release, Iron Eyes wrote "My late brother knew Bill Cody. I made a picture with him before he left here, with a boy named Andy Shuford." That 1931 melodrama still holds interest as an early talkie with a plot more akin to the silent films which preceded it than to the typical series westerns which followed.
