I saw this film under the title "Law of Vengeance", with an interesting convention of introducing each character with their film credit when they first appeared on screen. It's not unusual to see early silents and even talking films show all the characters in the story before the action gets under way, but I don't think I've seen it done this way before. Which means Randolph Scott, top billed but not appearing for about the first twenty minutes, suddenly shows up as Randolph Scott portraying Lynn Hayden.
Probably the best recommendation to see this film is for the players, a fairly top flight cast (perhaps in retrospect) including Scott, Buster Crabbe, Barton MacLane, Jack Larue and Noah Beery. Funny, but Beery looked more like his real life son Noah Beery Jr. before doing the fifteen year prison sentence in the story. Then suddenly he looked like a totally different actor. I'll have to go back and check that out again.
The bigger surprise though might have been catching Shirley Temple in an early uncredited screen appearance. Back in my early parochial school days, it seemed we were treated to a Temple film every couple of months. Others on this board have mentioned one of the Colby bunch taking her doll's head off with a rifle shot. I thought that was bad enough, but later in the story one of the bad guys was actually going to shoot her brother when another character ruined his aim. Seems to me that was carrying a feud just a bit too far.
What I don't understand is the way the picture ended. We're led to believe that most of the Hayden clan was killed in the blast that leveled the mountainside, but it seems that the Colby bunch was buried too! Then Larue's character offs the senior Colby (Beery) in order to marry daughter Ellen (Esther Ralston), which Jed Colby didn't approve of. Of course, Lynn Hayden had other plans, and in one of the more interesting finales to a final showdown you'll ever see, Hayden strategically positions a knife to defeat Jim Daggs, even though he was almost unconscious. Not a move I would recommend for a would-be hero in real life.
Probably the best recommendation to see this film is for the players, a fairly top flight cast (perhaps in retrospect) including Scott, Buster Crabbe, Barton MacLane, Jack Larue and Noah Beery. Funny, but Beery looked more like his real life son Noah Beery Jr. before doing the fifteen year prison sentence in the story. Then suddenly he looked like a totally different actor. I'll have to go back and check that out again.
The bigger surprise though might have been catching Shirley Temple in an early uncredited screen appearance. Back in my early parochial school days, it seemed we were treated to a Temple film every couple of months. Others on this board have mentioned one of the Colby bunch taking her doll's head off with a rifle shot. I thought that was bad enough, but later in the story one of the bad guys was actually going to shoot her brother when another character ruined his aim. Seems to me that was carrying a feud just a bit too far.
What I don't understand is the way the picture ended. We're led to believe that most of the Hayden clan was killed in the blast that leveled the mountainside, but it seems that the Colby bunch was buried too! Then Larue's character offs the senior Colby (Beery) in order to marry daughter Ellen (Esther Ralston), which Jed Colby didn't approve of. Of course, Lynn Hayden had other plans, and in one of the more interesting finales to a final showdown you'll ever see, Hayden strategically positions a knife to defeat Jim Daggs, even though he was almost unconscious. Not a move I would recommend for a would-be hero in real life.