The best Roscoe Karns’s western movies

The ranch of Red Ryder (Allan Lane) and his aunt, The Duchess (Martha Wentworth), is being used as the training site for "Gentleman Jim" Corbett (George Turner) for his upcoming fight in Carson City, Nevada for the heavyweight championship against Bob Fitzsimmons (John Dehner). Molly McVey (Peggy Stewart), the daughter of a U.S. Senator, crusading against prize-fighting in Nevada, complicates matters soemwhat when she conceives the bright idea of having Corbett kidnapped, thus causing the cancellation of the fight. The two men (George Chesebro and George Lloyd) she hires to do the kidnapping also add to the complications by kidnapping Ryder instead of Corbett. Meanwhile, a gang of crooks, led by McKean (Roy Barcroft), descend on the town intent on looting the town and also making off with the fight proceeds.

No relation to the 1950 Frank Capra film of the same name, the 1943 Technicolor musical Riding High is a by-the-numbers vehicle for Dorothy Lamour and Dick Powell. Lamour stars as Ann Castle, a former burlesque queen who heads westward to claim her father's silver mine. Powell plays mining engineer Steve Baird, who like Ann has a vested interest in the worked-out mine. With the help of genial counterfeiter Mortimer J. Slocum (Victor Moore), Steve and Ann are able to peddle mining stock, thus saving her from bankruptcy. The stockholders are in a lynching mood when it appears that they've been flim-flammed, but a last minute "miracle" saves the day. Featured in the cast are Paramount stalwarts Cass Daley and Gil Lamb, the former doing her quasi-Martha Raye act and the latter swallowing his harmonica for the millionth time. Production values are excellent and the songs are exuberantly performed; it's only in its hackneyed plot that Riding High slows to a clip-clop.

The Vanishing Pioneers is a 1928 silent western film directed by John Waters and starring Jack Holt. Holt's son, Tim makes his screen debut in this film The film is now lost. Parts of the film were shot in Zion National Park and Springdale, Utah.