Home on the Range: A Western that forgets to be a Western

Is it worth your time?

If you like old-school B-Westerns that don't take themselves too seriously, maybe. If you're looking for a tight script or a story that actually goes somewhere, skip it. It's for people who enjoy watching actors from the 1930s just sort of exist in a frame for 80 minutes.

Home on the Range starts in the cold and moves to the heat, but the movie itself stays pretty lukewarm the whole time. It's got that classic 'hey, we have a camera and some horses' energy. You can practically hear the director yelling, 'just keep walking, it'll look like a scene!'

The whole con-artist setup in Alaska is gone way too fast. I wanted to see more of the fake gold mines, honestly. Instead, we get a lot of guys in hats talking in rooms that look like they were built five minutes before the cameras rolled. It lacks the grit you might find in something like The Coast of Folly, which at least had some actual personality.

Ann Sheridan is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. She's supposed to be this cold-hearted grifter who suddenly feels bad about cheating the nice cattleman. The transition is so sudden it’s almost funny. One minute she’s plotting, the next she’s staring longingly at a fence post. I kept checking my watch during the long dialogue scenes where they explain the plan for the tenth time.

Randolph Scott is there, being Randolph Scott. He’s fine, but he doesn't seem to know if he’s in a romance or a crime drama. The chemistry feels forced, like they were told to stand near each other and hope for the best. 🤠

Odd moments I noticed:

• The extras in the background of the town scenes clearly have nowhere to be. Some of them just stop walking and look at the camera.
• The lighting in the tent scenes is weirdly bright. It looks like an office building.
• There’s a specific sequence where someone is riding a horse, and the editing makes it look like they are traveling across three different states in about four seconds.

It isn't a masterpiece, and it doesn't try to be. It feels like one of those movies made to fill a double bill on a Saturday afternoon. It’s not quite as messy as The Little Wild Girl, but it shares that same feeling of just wanting to get the job done so everyone can go home for dinner.

If you watch it, pay attention to the way the actors try to hide their lack of dialogue by just adjusting their hats. It happens at least six times. It’s the small stuff that keeps you watching when the plot decides to take a nap.