Rough Riding Ranger (1935) Review - Pigeons, Drunks, and Dirt

If you love cheap, dusty 1930s westerns where the plot relies on carrier pigeons of all things, you will have a great time with this. But if you need actual logic or high-quality sound, you should probably skip it.

The whole setup in Rough Riding Ranger is wonderfully silly. The bad guys are intercepting messages by having a guy named Slim shoot down carrier pigeons in the middle of the desert.

Why pigeons? Why not just watch the road? Who knows, but it is highly entertaining to watch.

Rex Lease plays Ranger Daniels, and he has to go undercover. His big plan is to pretend to be a hopeless drunk so he can get hired by the villains.

His "drunk acting" is basically just squinting really hard and wobbling his head around. It is amazing how fast the bad guys trust him. 🥴

The movie gets even better when you notice the special effects. In one scene, they shoot down a pigeon, and the bird they use looks suspiciously like a stuffed toy being thrown from off-camera.

I actually paused the video to laugh at that part. It is much more charming than the stiff stuff you see in The Wheel of Destiny from around the same era.

The Good Stuff (Mostly the Stunts)

Yakima Canutt is in the cast, which means we get some genuinely great horse falls. The man was a legend for a reason, even if the movie around him is falling apart.

The editing is incredibly choppy. Sometimes a guy is riding a horse, and in the very next frame he is suddenly on the ground fighting.

It feels like they only had one afternoon to shoot the whole climax. The gang rides back and forth past the exact same hill about four times to make the chase look longer.

Also, keep an eye on the dirt. You can clearly see the tire tracks from the camera truck in several shots.

It is these little mistakes that make me love these old movies. They just wanted to get it done and move on to the next one.

"He missed the pigeon on purpose! He must be a ranger!" — Actual logic used by the bad guys.

If you want a polished masterpiece, this is not it. But for a lazy Sunday afternoon, it is a pretty fun slice of weird history.

Some weird details I noticed:

• The cowboy band in the credits seems to disappear completely from the actual movie.
• One actor keeps looking directly at the camera like he is waiting for someone to yell cut.
• The background music just stops and starts with no transition at all.