This review exists out of spite, in a way. One of the films I wanted to look into before this weird B-Western craze I've been having burnt itself out was listed in my records simply as "Mystery Ranch (1932)." I also memorized a brief plot description I'd stumbled across, which was that it was some sort of Gothic Western with an evil piano player, and that it starred George O'Brien. Curious, then, that every version of the film I found online credited the star as Tom Tyler, each featuring a plot which in no way had an evil piano player, much less Gothic elements. Then I spotted my error: this was the Mystery Ranch from 1934, a completely different film. It sure sucked, then, that there were several online editions of the movie that listed the details of the 1932 film in the description, a fault replicated as well on several movie databases. I love and hate dealing with movies made within a few years of each other with the same title--it can be rough spending a long time searching for a movie, especially if you thought that you already found it...and especially if finding that first wrong film was a challenge to begin with. But then again, I also get to do double reviews like this one.
Mystery Ranch ('32) is ultimately the story of Jane Emory, a wealthy heiress being held hostage at her own ranch by Henry Steele, her late father's deranged business partner. He intends not only to hang onto the ranch by any means necessary but to marry Jane whether she wants it or not. He spends a lot of time brooding and playing ominous piano pieces, because he is Charles "Ming the Merciless" Middleton. In his employ is a deadly mute Apache whose name, of all things, is Muto...because of course it is. Enter Bob Sanborn, an undercover Texas Ranger who learns about Steele's plot and intends to stop it. He is confronted with peril along the way, including the kidnapping of Jane's English comic relief butler Artie, who is sentenced to death by bucking bronco. This all leads to Bob putting a posse together and leading a siege on the ranch in a scene which makes the entire film.
This Mystery Ranch is vastly different from its 1934 counterpart, but it is an exceptional B-Western in its own right because one simple detail: it's actually a really good movie. There isn't deep characterization, but it has a more expansive world than most B-Westerns. That is to say that the world it presents feels alive, and not like a movie set loaded up with matte paintings. For one thing, the movie actually uses locations, as far as I can tell, so it's made in the authentic American Southwest. Y'know, like A-Westerns! There are a lot of clever twists and turns, and the dialogue and camerawork are snappy enough to keep you engaged. Even ignoring the 55 minute runtime, it'll be done before you know it. I don't know how well you could really describe it as a "Gothic" film, though, because while it does have an emphasis on shadow, and the villains have their creepy moments, it's much more focused on traditional Western action. This doesn't spoil it at all, I should say. I will avoid giving away any more on it--definitely check it out if you get a chance, though you'll probably have to track down a bootleg.
Mystery Ranch ('34) opens with one of the most bizarre scenes I've ever seen put to film. It's this weird over the top melodramatic parody of Western tropes, where the cowboy has to rescue a lady from a bad marriage. "Marry muh!" insists the big-mustachioed villain. "Marry muh, or I'll tear yuh limb from pieces!" It turns out this is just a scene or representation thereof from one of the Western pulps of writer Bob Morris, whose father disapproves of his profession. Bob gets a letter from a town out West which claims to be the real Wild West--they're fans of his novels but think he could improve on his accuracy, so they want him to come out and walk the walk as it were, as a real cowboy. It turns out the whole thing is a gag: the town is just as modern as anywhere else, but they intend to fake exciting Western scenes to give their favorite writer some more inspiration. As it turns out, Bob can handle his dukes, by reining in some wild horses and socking the crap out of some toughs sent to haze him. (This town doesn't care about his assaulting their citizens, I should say.) That'll be useful when at last it turns out an old-style hold-up Bob witnesses is for real. Bob tries to trick the tricksters, so everyone gets mixed up when the real theft is revealed. As in all Westerns, there's only way for Bob to clear his name: bring in the bad guys.
It goes without saying that this Mystery Ranch's uniqueness arises from how meta it is for a film this early. I'm sure that the Western parody is nearly as old as the Western genre itself--after all, there have been stories about the American West ever since a bunch of German started writing adventure books about it back in the 1840s. (Yes, the first famous Westerns were written by Germans, many of whom never visited the Americas. It's a pretty remarkable history, actually, if you have the time to read about it.) But that opening scene is pretty brutal in its satire, exposing how hollow and false a lot of the stuff the masses consumed could be. There's an interplay between how comic and soapy these hack writers make the West, contrasted with how the West was in real life--a brutal place, but also sometimes an ordinary place. A boring place. In a sense, these Westerners want to make fun of Morris and other writers exoticizing the West, and reducing it to a series of tropes, while also not taking themselves overly seriously. What makes this stuff good is that it's played lightly. There's a lot to be learned with how this film deals with layers of fiction.
Pretentiousness aside, it's also pretty good at giving us characters who we can like. The acting isn't nearly as good as it was in Mystery Ranch ('32), but this does contain the miraculous reappearance of Jimmy Aubrey, aka Ptomaine Pete. In the prologue set in Bob's story, he plays Pigsty Pete, and in "real life" he's the guy on the end of the noose when Bob stumbles across a lynching the town stages for him. His presence adds to the tongue-in-cheek nature of the whole thing, and in fact, it muddles the odd performance Aubrey gives in The Phantom Cowboy even further. I didn't even think such a thing was possible.
In the end, both Mystery Ranches are treats, and that they are such in vastly different ways is a treat in itself. One of them is a seriously well-done affair with progressive cinematography and clever performances. The other is a baffling, amusing, and deeply charming exploration of the tropes of a genre only then in the middle of its adolescence. This month has been a fun adventure for me in the world of the low-budget Western, and what sad is that there were still some I had to leave out. Maybe someday we'll saddle up again and visit the debauched worlds of Smoking Guns or Rawhide Terror. Now those are tales to tell...
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