Highly Overrated But Still Good

An action-packed slog

It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

Just intense enough to provide a much-needed diversion, just lightweight enough to make you forget about it soon after it’s over. It’s not exactly “good,” per se, but it does what it sets out to do in terms of putting us on edge, which makes it … successful?

Hoot Gibson (Reasonin' Bates), Mary Doran (Mary Shea), James Eagles (Eddie Shea), Walter McGrail (Grant), John Elliott (Dan Caswell), Ralph Lewis (sheriff), Eddie Lee (Ling Fong), Kitty McHugh (Della, the maid), Horace B. Carpenter (Joe Jackson), Slim Whitaker, Goober Glenn, Bill Hickey, Jim Corey, Ed "Pardner" Jones, George Sowards, Lem Sowards, Freddie Gilman, Bill Gillis (themselves), Fred Humes (Teddy Dove).Director: RAY McCAREY. Story and continuity: Paul Schofield. Photography: Gilbert Warrenton. Film editor: Ralph Dietrich. Music director: Abe Meyer. Production manager: Leon D'Usseau. Assistant director: George Sherman. Sound recording: Hal Bumbaugh. Copyright 15 March 1935 by First Division Productions, Inc. No recorded New York opening. U.S. release: 3 April 1935. 6 reels. 60 minutes.SYNOPSIS: Two cowpokes have saved up almost enough money to buy the ranch at which they work, when a new owner suddenly arrives from the east. A female to boot!COMMENT: Starts off slowly but soon develops into a rather charming comedy/romance with a slap-up chase climax. Deftly shot on location by director Ray McCarey (brother of Leo), this little western has much to recommend it, not least the attractive performances rendered by almost the entire cast, led by Hoot Gibson, Mary Doran and John Elliott.

Hoot Gibson and John Elliott want to buy the Sunset Range ranch, and are disappointed when they find out it's been sold to an Easterner. Hoot is even more disappointed when the new owner turns out to be Mary Doran, who wants him to dress like a movie cowboy, but some loaded dice settle that matter, and the good humor of both is on the point of sealing any rifts. However, it turns out that Miss Doran's brother has been dealing with some bank robbers, who have put stolen bonds in her luggage. When they show up, shoot the brother and kidnap the girl, it's up to Hoot and the ranch hands to settle the matter.This is a fine Hoot Gibson movie, directed by Leo MacCarey's under-rated brother, Ray. It shows off Hoot's sly good humor, and AD George Sherman, a couple of years before he began to take the director's chair, directs the action and stunt sequences very well. A clear winner for Hoot's fans.

There's a lot more humor in Sunset Range than you would find in most B westerns. And I mean humor not at the expense of some dopey sidekick. Hoot Gibson and Mary Doran are a well matched pair of leads and the comedy is on the level of some of the better Roy Rogers/Dale Evans westerns which also had a battle of the sexes.Mary Doran has come west to live on a ranch purchased by her brother James Eagles. Eagles is a racketeer albeit not a very good one. His rackets boss Walter McGrail hides $100,000.00 in stolen loot in Doran's trunk in a secret compartment to get it out of town while they wait until the heat cools down. Doran doesn't know she has it.In the meantime she settles in on her new ranch where she has to win over the men headed by Hoot Gibson who had hoped to buy the place for himself. Gibson and Doran are not quite Tracy and Hepburn, but they do have their moments. There's a funny tooth pulling scene and later on Doran gets Gibson to wear a pair of wool chaps that drugstore cowboys would normally wear. She does it by using some loaded dice on the unsuspecting Hoot.The reason the scenes play so well is that the director here is Raymond McCarey, Leo's brother. The younger McCarey never got the acclaim that Leo did, he never graduated into A feature pictures. But he did do a lot of comedy shorts for Hal Roach. Ray McCarey's comedic touch is a sure one that those years with Roach would have taught him.McCarey also did do B westerns and he does have a really furious climax with the city bandits who have taken Doran hostage in Sunset Range. All in all Sunset Range is a really excellent B western, way out of the league of the normal poverty row product.

I'll admit I enjoyed this movie WAY more then I should have. Hoot Gibson is starting grow on me for some odd reason, it seems he wanted to be a western star without really resorting to guns to resolve feuds. In this movie, he plays a hired hand who realizes the land, Sunset Ranch, he wanted so desperately to have has been sold! To a woman to boot! So he's rather annoyed about that, but of course, being a western and all, the woman starts getting more charming by the minute. But the woman's brother who also owns the land, is a bit shady, he's in the mafia you see, and his activities spill over into the Ranch. So it's up to Hoot and his gang to do something about it! I hate to say this, but I found this to be one of the better written B westerns out there, full of funny dialogue and cute one liners, this had me from the get go, so I would definitely recommend this if you're looking for a great B western.