Summary
In the blistering badlands of New Mexico, where the sun scorches illusions clean off bone, a gilded prodigal—Hobbs the Younger—gallops headlong into a mirage of ore-rich redemption, dispatched by his iron-wired patriarch to repossess a mine once dismissed as barren. Twin shadows, the Willoughby brothers, pirouette through the fable like Janus-faced harlequins: Louis clings to legal title, while Lord, the velvet serpent, whispers larceny into the ear of Rufus Renshaw, a titan whose appetite for risk is rivaled only by his yen for filial leverage. A locomotive, thundering westward, ferries this carnival of cupidity—Renshaw, his luminous daughter Helen (whose heart already beats in Hobbs’s ribcage), and the disguised Lord—toward a desert crucible where deeds, names, and ores will all prove counterfeit. In a sleight-of-hand that would make Hermes blush, Lord masquerades as Louis, selling the mine twice: first to Renshaw for hard cash, then—after Hobbs Jr. secures the authentic claim—revealed as fool’s dust. Yet the final jest belongs to the lovers: Hobbs unloads the worthless shaft back onto the duped tycoon in exchange for marital blessing, then bolts with Helen into the copper dusk, leaving only swirling tumbleweeds and the faint echo of triumphant laughter.
Synopsis
Millionaire J. Warren Hobbs, Sr., sends his lively young son to New Mexico to buy back a mine he previously had thought worthless but since has discovered is rich in tungsten deposits. Lord Willoughby, the mine owner's twin brother, suggests to Hobbs's business rival, Rufus Renshaw, that he buy the mine, after which Willoughby, Renshaw and Renshaw's daughter Helen, the sweetheart of Hobbs, Jr., catch a westbound train. Angered when Helen scorns his advances, Lord Willoughby disguises himself as his brother and sells Renshaw the mine; meanwhile, Hobbs, Jr. purchases it from its real owner, Louis Willoughby. Soon after Renshaw discovers that Lord Willoughby tricked him, Hobbs, Jr. learns that the mine is worthless after all and sells it to Renshaw in return for the old man's permission to marry Helen. Having successfully tricked the whole party, Hobbs and his fiancée make a quick exit.
Review Excerpt
"
Picture a nickelodeon flickering to life in 1920: the pianist unleashes a syncopated rag, and Hobbs in a Hurry erupts across the screen like a tincture of mercury slipped into bourbon. What unfurls is not mere melodrama but a sly meditation on value—geological, filial, romantic—where every nugget proves double-edged. Director George Lee McCandless, armed with Jules Furthman’s whip-smart intertitles, stages a capitalist carnival inside a landscape that Keith of the Border merely scouted and Kent..."
