King of the Royal Mounted: Just a bunch of guys yelling in the snow

Is this for you?

If you have a soft spot for 1930s serials where the good guys wear perfect hats and the bad guys have obvious mustaches, sure, give it a whirl. But if you get annoyed by characters who stand around narrating their own plans while someone is actively trying to shoot them, you will probably hate this. It is definitely for people who miss the era of B-movies where the plot was just an excuse to get to the next fistfight.

Watching King of the Royal Mounted feels a bit like digging through a dusty attic and finding a stack of old comic books. It is not exactly high art, but there is a strange energy to it that you just don't get anymore. Robert Kent is playing the Sergeant with that weird, permanent chin-up stance that makes him look like he is constantly trying to sniff the air for danger. It is almost funny to watch.

The whole mine plot is so thin you could see right through it. Honestly, I stopped caring about who owned the mine halfway through and just started watching the horses. There is a lot of riding in this movie. Like, a lot. The scenery is clearly just a nearby park, and sometimes the lighting changes so drastically between shots that it looks like they filmed the chase scenes in different seasons.

The bad guy is doing a lot of heavy lifting

The lawyer, played by Alan Dinehart, is having a blast. He is the only one who seems to know he is in a silly movie, and he leans into it by looking suspicious every time someone says the word 'deed' or 'money.' It is a performance that feels like it belongs in a much better film, maybe something like The Scoffer, but here he is, stuck in the woods.

There is this one moment where the Mounties are supposed to be hiding behind a tree, but you can clearly see three of them just standing in the open, waiting for the camera to pan. It is the kind of mistake that makes you feel like you are actually there on set, probably wishing for a hot cup of coffee. The pacing is weirdly fast, too. They move from a standoff to a campfire chat without any real transition. It just jumps. I like that, actually. No fluff.

• The dialogue sounds like it was written by someone who had never met a real human being.
• The sound of the horses' hooves is way too loud, like they were recorded in a bathroom.
• I’m pretty sure the same background extra appears as both a villager and a bandit.
• It’s shorter than some modern music videos, which is a mercy.

It is definitely not as complex as The Napoleonic Epics, obviously. It is much more like watching Horses' Collars if you took away the slapstick and replaced it with intense staring. 🏔️

It is fine. It is a Saturday morning cartoon turned into a movie, and sometimes that is exactly what you need when your brain is fried. Just don't expect it to change your life.