Looks like our friends at Lone Star put this one together on the fly. It's like they've got two plots going at the same time, and then decide to drop the one with bank robber Al (Eddie Parker) in favor of the other with Jake (Hayes) and his daughter (Sheldon). Nonetheless, there are some entertaining touches. The street fight with Wayne and Parker is especially energetic, two young guys in tip-top shape and well matched. I guess producers decided we Front Row kids had seen enough hard riding, so instead there's that nifty 3-way chase pitting horse against flivver against rail-car. The latter two are faster, but then the horse can go anywhere and we know who's got the horse. And is that Hayes actually duking it out with the bad guy. We only see the back of his head, at a time when the one-and-only Hayes was already pushing 50. Then there's that headlong slide down the sluice chute that looks like an Old West version of an E-ride at Disneyland. And what kid wouldn't have given his proverbial i- teeth to have been along on that one.
One reason I still like these Lone Star oaters is because of the young Wayne. Note how loose and relaxed he is; he's having fun out there in LA's outskirts with all his buddies in the crew and cast. He's just perfect for these matinée specials. But pity poor Barbara Sheldon as Betty. Director Bradbury has his hands full with the guys and the script, so here she is floundering around, doing her best, but looking like a confused puppy. Sadly, it appears she quit the business following this movie's wrap-up. No, this is not top-rank Lone Star, but then it's not every entry where we get to see knobby-knee Hayes in drag and his underwear. So there are compensations.
In passing—note how the assayer in his office quotes Hayes a price of $16 an ounce for gold. That was the price in 1933, and the trouble is it stayed at that price for the next 40 or so years because of gov't fiat. At the same time, the costs of mining gold were rising yearly. So the industry went into eclipse and that's why the metal that had so much to do with opening the West fell off the public's radar screen for so many years following WWII. Ironic.
