Three scoundrels, one land rush, and Fay Wray screaming before King Kong got her.
In 1877, thieves Ace Beaudry, Bronco Dawson and Bull Stanley head West together after having each been betrayed by a woman. They come across a wagon train bound for the town of Custer, where hundreds of people are gathering for a land rush in the Dakotas, which President Ulysses S. Grant has opened to settlers thanks to a treaty with the Sioux Indians. After the three rogues ride off, they spy a lone wagon with a tempting string of thoroughbreds. Before they can steal the horses, however, the wagon is attacked by a gang led by Layne Hunter, a shifty saloon owner from Custer. The trio chase off the gang, and as they are about to abscond with the horses, they find pretty Lee Carleton, whose father was killed in the attack.
Acting
Victor McLaglen's booming physicality against Lew Cody's slick con man.
Production
Pre-Code edge means actual moral ambiguity for 1931.
Director
Benjamin Stoloff
Victor McLaglen
Bull Stanley
Fay Wray
Lee Carleton
Lew Cody
Ace Beaudry
Robert Warwick
Layne Hunter
Joyce Compton
Ace's girl
Eddie Gribbon
Bronco Dawson
Louise Huntington
Bronco's girl
Franklyn Farnum
Nelson
Jim Farley
Marshal Dunn
David Worth
Bruce Randall
Bob Burns
Newspaper Printer (uncredited)
Luke Cosgrave
Old Timer (uncredited)
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
This is a loose remake of 1929's 'The Three Outcasts,' which itself was based on a novel—Hollywood was recycling before it was cool.
President Grant's treaty with the Sioux is treated as background texture; the actual 1877 land rush devastated the Lakota. The film's breezy treatment of displacement is peak 1930s Western mythology.
US
