Scarlet River

Viewers of this little Western get some interesting surprises near its beginning when Tom Keene visits the studio commissary. Brief bits from a very young Joel McCrea, Myrna Loy, Bruce Cabot, Rochelle Hudson, and other stars of the 1930s add an extra dimension to the picture. Note also Yakima Canutt's famous jump to the horses, this time pulling a wagon instead of a stagecoach. Location shooting was done at Vasquez Rocks, so film fans watching this film will see the same terrain that you can find in "The Flintstones" and episodes of "Star Trek." This is a Western that wasn't afraid to kid the genre, so if you take the opening scene very seriously, you're in for a big surprise.

Tox Baxter (Tom Keene) is an actor who wants to film a movie at Judy Blake's ranch. Tom discovers that men on the ranch are killing the cattle and blaming it on a variety of things...and dopey Judy doesn't believe Tom when he tells her. Later, because she is so trusting, Judy is kidnapped and Tom uses his expert acting skills to try to rescue her.

This is a well made film for an old B-western. This, combined with a rather unusual plot make it well worth seeing. It also shows that while Keene is no longer a household name, his westerns could be most enjoyable and worth your time. Good harmless fun.

1933's "Scarlet River" was a Tom Keene Western depicting how a Hollywood studio (in this case RKO) goes about making such films, the same thing Lugosi's "The Death Kiss" did for murder mysteries. Judy Blake's Scarlet River Ranch is the perfect ___location for Keene's latest, but the unscrupulous foreman, Jeff Todd (Creighton Chaney), is in cahoots with villainous 'Clink' McPherson (Hooper Atchley), seeking to put her out of business and foreclose. Judy (Dorothy Wilson) has a younger brother who falls under Todd's bad influence, smoking, chewing tobacco, even lying to his big sis, until Tom manages to get things straightened out by the 54 minute mark. One scene shows a galloping horse making a pickup with the camera speeding alongside by car, in case you were wondering how it was done in those early days. Despite its lack of background music, it's 54 minute running time keeps things moving. The most famous sequence takes place early on in the studio commissary, as Keene is greeted by Joel McCrea, Myrna Loy, Julie Haydon, Bruce Cabot, and Rochelle Hudson, all playing themselves (in that order). In only his fourth film, 'Creighton Chaney' was to change his name two years later, building on these RKO efforts as 'Lon Chaney Jr.' Impressively third billed, 26 year old Creighton acquits himself well, yet after one more opposite Tom Keene ("Son of the Border") left RKO to freelance.

A film crew gets mixed up with a ranch's dishonest foreman and his conniving mastermind.

This oater has one of the darndest scenes of any horse opera I've seen. A movie crew is out in the middle of nowhere shooting a cowboy scene. Except it's not out in the middle of nowhere when a sudden parade of cross-country runners run through the setup. They come out of nowhere, and abruptly the illusion is shattered. More tellingly, it shows how much of an illusion those old matinees were for front row kids like myself.

Minimize the boilerplate plot. Instead, it's really fun watching the film crew go through the movie-making motions. As others point out, it's a movie within a movie. And catch Miss Westinghouse herself, Betty Furness, as the actress. I almost thought I was watching one of those old 50's game shows. Also, there's Lon Chaney Jr. while he was still young and strapping. Anyway, it's a fun movie, at least in my little book. And if I'm not mistaken, those rock slabs are Vasquez Rocks just a few miles north of LA. So the crew didn't have to go far, after all.

A "7" on the matinée scale.

Until this movie popped up on TCM, the only time I ever saw Tom Keane was in a commie propaganda movie from 1934 called "Our Daily Bread". I would never have remembered him in that except his overacting was so bad, it was hard to forget. I'm not much for Saturday am oaters, but when I saw his name, I thought it would be good for a laugh. I was really surprised.

This was a movie in a movie. A notch up from the standard western programmers of the day. Tom plays a cowboy hero with a poverty row production company trying to find an isolated ranch to film their two reelers on. He's ably supported by Edgar Kennedy as the director, Betty Furness as his heroine, and Yakima Canutt as a stuntman. (Of course, everybody who knows anything about the genre, realizes that he was the ultimate western stuntman in real life.) They eventually find an isolated ranch outside LA only to get tangled up in a complicated land grab plot. The pretty owner is played by Dorothy Wilson who seems to have vanished from film history. The crooked foreman is played by Lon Chaney Jr in a very early role, and the comic relief is played by Roscoe Ates. I won't bother to outline the plot except to say that the hero saves the day.

The surprise is that this was a thoroughly enjoyable movie. Tom Keane was likable and hardly overacted at all, the heroine and love interest were both lovely, and the contrast between make believe movie magic and what passed for real life was entertaining.

One added bonus: I'm in the business myself, and the opportunity to see the primitive cameras, lights, and sound equipment was really amazing. They really had to work at it in those days. The boom mikes looked like telephone poles. The cameras were the size of dog houses. Humping that stuff around must have been murder. Watching the crew strut around in jodphurs, leather jackets and silk scarfs was a delight.

All in all, a thoroughly enjoyable experience. Anybody interested in the nuts and bolts of film making should enjoy it as well.