My title is meant to emphasize the silent era-like features of this and many other early sound westerns. If you are used to silent films, this shouldn't bother you that much. The villains often have the exaggerated look of many silent film counterparts. The brawls, horse chases and stunts also often have the exaggerated and amateurish look of many silent films. The filming technique also often looks relatively crude, like the cheaper silent films. People apparently shot dead often conveniently resurrect later with just a head graze(The 2 apparent murders in this film turn out this way). All those highly unlikely coincidences that make the story turn out right have a silent era feel to them. Thus, some of the scenes could almost be pulled from a silent era film. This includes Wayne's(actually stunt man Yakima Canutt's) long skid sitting on a convenient tree limb, through a long large sluice tunnel. This tunnel just happened to begin where he tumbled down a long hill after missing on an attempted rider tackle, and just happened to end up where he could make another tackle attempt from a tree. We can imagine Charlie Chhaplin or Buster Keaton doing the same thing in a slightly different context. Another comedic scene was the chase via Model T and horse of the badies escaping on a motorized rail utility car. The model T and railcar finally collide after a passed up opportunity.. In the finale, the frustrated photographer stalks off, stepping high in Charlie Chaplin style. The courtroom scene with George Hayes disguised as a female relative, followed by the villains smashing through the window, could almost have been pulled off in a silent western, with a few quote cards.
Aside from the comedic and stunt aspects, this film features a fairly complicated, if predictable, plot, with the operators of the mineral assay office running a general crime operation(somewhat like Soapy Smith), including rustling, claim and property swindling, gold weighing shaving and murder. They try to swindle Hayes out of his ranch and gold mine claims and put him 6 feet under. The sheriff's son is an independent badman. Both Wayne and Hayes spend a short time in jail as the chief suspect in murders. Each figures out how to get the other out legitimately and catch the real badmen. Barbara Sheldon, a curvaceous young blond, just happens to move in with grandpa Hayes shortly after Wayne does. She immediately takes to the Duke and he doesn't make any attempt to resist. All in all, its a better than average entertaining early sound western, and I'm glad I saw it.
