GHOST VALLEY (1932)
Article 3495 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 2-8-2011
Posting Date: 3-11-2011
Directed by Fred Allen
Featuring Tom Keene, Merna Kennedy, Kate Campbell
Country: USA
What it is: Weird western, comic style

A judge hires a young drifter to portray one of two heirs to an abandoned ghost town in the hopes that he can talk the other heir (a beautiful woman) into selling; the judge knows there is a fortune in gold there. What the judge does not know is that the drifter is indeed the other heir for real, and has decided to thwart the judge’s scheme.

This weird western concentrates on the comedy for the first part, then has a few spooky sequences involving a masked rider during the middle section (these scenes are actually quite atmospheric), and then concentrates on western thrills for the climax. It’s not bad and fairly entertaining, though the story becomes a bit confusing in the middle section. Still, I do have to admire some of the stunt work in this western, particularly the scenes where horses are ridden down fairly steep inclines. Tom Keene had a long career in B westerns, but his last movie role would be in PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE.