Going from small town sheriff to federal marshal, Dennis O'Keefe gets a huge discovery when he finds out that the town he's trying to clean up is being run by the bandit who years ago left him with his mother and ran off for a life of crime. Wallace Beery is the absent father who only discovers his grown sin when he robs the carriage he's riding in and sees the picture of his former wife in O'Keefe's pocket watch. Along the way there's O'Keefe's romance with the pretty Virginia Bruce, daughter of the respected judge Lewis Stone, and the battle with a gang of bandit brothers lead by Bruce Cabot.
There's an awful lot of plot covered in this MGM western, just one of many that Beery starred in, and he's not any different here than he was in any of the others. A huge cast of famous character actors play various townsfolk and men on both sides of the law, among them Joseph Calleia, Guy Kibbee, Guinn "Big Boy" Williams and the singing Cliff Edwards, with the later two as Cabot's brothers. The story goes in so many directions that it's easy to get lost or disinterested. Even the MGM gloss and all those stars can't change that.
There's an awful lot of plot covered in this MGM western, just one of many that Beery starred in, and he's not any different here than he was in any of the others. A huge cast of famous character actors play various townsfolk and men on both sides of the law, among them Joseph Calleia, Guy Kibbee, Guinn "Big Boy" Williams and the singing Cliff Edwards, with the later two as Cabot's brothers. The story goes in so many directions that it's easy to get lost or disinterested. Even the MGM gloss and all those stars can't change that.