Riders of Death Valley

"A MILLION-DOLLAR SUPER SERIAL! With a thousand teeming thrills in 15 exciting chapters!"

Jul 1 1941 Approved 4h 43m
Action, Western

The Saturday matinee crowd got two cowboy stars for the price of one in this lavishly budgeted western serial starring former singing cowboy Dick Foran and Buck Jones. The latter contributed deadpan humor to the proceedings, making Jones perhaps the highest paid B-western comedy relief in history. The two heroes defend the Death Valley borax miners from an outlaw gang headed by Wolf Reade. An extraordinarily strong cast -- for a serial, at least -- supported the stars, headed by Charles Bickford as Reade, Leo Carillo, Lon Chaney, Jr., and silent screen star Monte Blue. Leading lady Jeanne Kelly later changed her name to Jean Brooks and starred in the atmospheric RKO thriller The Seventh Victim (1943). Universal claimed to have spent $1 million on this serial and made sure to get their money's worth by endlessly recycling the action footage in serials and B-westerns for years to come.

Plot

The story centers about a group of vigilantes organized to protect miners in the picturesque but sinister days of the California gold strike. Jim Benton (Dick Foran) and Tombstone (Buck Jones) lead their "riders", Pancho Lopez (Leo Carrillo) , Smokey (Noah Beery Jr.), Borax Bill (Guinn 'Big Boy' Williams) and Tex (Glenn Strange), in a raid on a fake Protection League, organized by crooked connivers to gain control over the biggest claims in the Panamint region. They have barely restored peace and withdrawn to the saloon to be toasted by the grateful miners when the wounded Chuckawalla Charley Morgan (Frank Austin), an old desert rat, is carried in and reveals he has traced the Lost Aztec mine...a search in which he and Benton were partners, since the latter had grub-staked him. Chuckawalla asks Benton to give his share to his niece, Mary Morgan (Jean Brooks as Jeanne Kelly), and gasps his last breath. Just then, Benton gets a tip that Wolf Reade (Charles Bickford) and his gang of death valley terrorists, including Butch (Lon Chaney Jr.) , have made to plans to rob the incoming stagecoach, which has Mary and Tombstone as passengers. Reade kills the stagecoach driver before Benton's riders arrive, and the stagecoach horses careen toward a rickety mountain bridge...and death yawns below for Mary and Tombstone. (Continued next week in Chapter Two: "Menacing Herd")

Written by

Sherman L. Lowe, George H. Plympton, Basil Dickey

Directed by

Ford Beebe, Ray Taylor

Cast

Dick Foran, Leo Carrillo, Buck Jones

Crew

View crew

Production Countries

United States of America

Production Companies

Universal Pictures

Languages

English

Awards

N/A

Trailers
Riders Of Death Valley (1941) - Trailer
Scores
# of Votes
128
Average Rating
6.6 out of 10
Metascore
NA
Popularity
NA