The Painted Desert

The only thing I can say after watching this movie is that I saw some history. This movie is over 90-years-old as of today and it looked it. The picture quality and the sound were a tad above awful and the acting was not far behind. Cinematic issues aside, this movie had a very simplistic plot and I still had a hard time following it. It was too hard to make out the faces to know who was who and who did what.

Two traveling companions, Cash Holbrook (William Boyd) and Jeff Cameron (J. Farrell MacDonald), found an abandoned baby boy. What do you think their next course of action was? If you said locate a family for him then you're wrong. They got into a lifelong feud over the boy. They split right then and there over who should raise the boy and Cash Holbrook was the victor in that respect. He raised him and named him Bill Holbrook (William Boyd).

Years later, when Bill was an adult, we got to see what became of Bill and the two men. Cash was the wealthy owner of a cattle company while Jeff was a struggling rancher who owned the rights to a local watering hole. Jeff's watering hole was the only thing Cash wanted of his.

Bill would eventually split from his father and go work for Jeff. Actually, Cash kicked his adopted son out of the house which prompted Bill to go work for Jeff. Why was Bill run off by his pa? Bill had the audacity to suggest that Cash work with Jeff to help mine some tungsten on Jeff's land. For such a blasphemous suggestion Cash ran off his beloved adopted son.

Would Jeff and Cash ever become friends again? Would Bill ever reunite with his adoptive father? It wasn't very compelling stuff, but what else were you going to watch in 1931?

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