The Fighting Ranger: A Buck Jones Western with a serious case of the wobbles

Is this worth your time?

If you've got a soft spot for 1930s B-Westerns, sure. Just don't go in expecting John Ford levels of craft. If you get impatient with stiff dialogue and guys falling off horses in ways that look physically painful, skip it.

I sat down with The Fighting Ranger expecting a bit of grit, but honestly, it’s mostly just people riding in circles. Buck Jones is decent enough, I guess, but there’s a hollowness to the whole thing. It reminded me a bit of the pacing issues in The Mask of Lopez, where the story feels like it’s just killing time until the next inevitable gunshot.

The plot is simple. Jim’s brother gets offed by a gang, so he goes undercover to get revenge. Classic stuff. But man, the way he just 'joins' the gang is so rushed it’s funny. Like, no one checks his references? 🤠

Cinematic perspective: Exploring the visual vocabulary of The Fighting Ranger (1934) through its definitive frames.

Oddly specific observations:

• The horses seem to have more screen presence than some of the side characters.
• There is this one shot where someone is clearly waiting for a cue off-camera. They just stare into the void for an extra three seconds.
• The desert looks awfully well-maintained in some scenes.
• Ward Bond shows up, which is always a treat, even if he doesn't have much to do here.

There is this moment near the middle where they sit around a campfire and talk, and the sound quality drops off a cliff. It sounds like they recorded it inside a tin can. It’s charming in a 'we didn't have any money' kind of way, but it definitely pulls you out of the scene.

I found myself thinking about The Bottom of the Well while watching this. Both films have that weird, claustrophobic feeling despite being set in wide-open spaces. It’s all about how they frame the action, I suppose.

The final shootout? A bit of a mess. It’s mostly just guys running behind rocks and shooting at nothing. But hey, if you’re into that, it gets the job done. It’s not a masterpiece, it’s just... a movie. Sometimes that's exactly what I want on a rainy Tuesday.