The Fighting Sheriff (1931) Review - Buck Jones and the Scarf of Doom

If you have an hour to kill and you like movies where the dust looks real and the acting is a bit stiff, this is for you.

It is a solid pick for anyone who likes Buck Jones or those old-school westerns where the hero is almost too nice for his own good.

People who need explosions or fast editing will hate this because it moves like a tired horse in some parts.

The whole story starts with a guy named Jack dying.

He makes Bob and Flash promise not to tell his sister, Mary, that he was actually a bad guy.

It is one of those big secrets that you just know is going to blow up in everyone's face immediately.

Buck Jones plays Bob, and he has this very square jaw that makes him look like he’s constantly posing for a statue.

Then there is the muffler.

They keep talking about a muffler, which in 1931 just meant a scarf, but I kept thinking about a car part falling off a stagecoach.

Flash leaves this scarf at a robbery like a total dummy.

When Bob finds it and calls him out, Flash decides to just lie and tell Mary that Bob is the one who killed her brother.

Mary believes him way too easily.

She just looks at Bob with these sad eyes and you want to yell at the screen that she’s being played.

The movie gets way more interesting once Tiana shows up.

Cinematic perspective: Exploring the visual vocabulary of The Fighting Sheriff (1931) through its definitive frames.

She is the jealous type who has had enough of Flash's lies.

"I'm going to the Sheriff!"

She actually does something instead of just crying about it.

There is a scene in a cabin where the lighting is so weird it looks like they only had one candle for the whole room.

You can barely see who is talking, but the shadows on the wall are actually pretty cool to look at.

It reminds me a bit of the vibe in Hitchin' Posts, just with more horses and less boat stuff.

The horse in this, Silver, is honestly a better actor than a couple of the outlaws.

He stands there looking very professional while the humans scramble around him.

There is one part where a guy falls off his horse and it looks like it actually hurt.

He just kind of rolls into the dirt and stays there for a second too long.

I wonder if they just kept filming because they couldn't afford another take.

The ending is very abrupt.

Everything gets solved in about three minutes and then the movie just stops.

It’s not a masterpiece, but it’s got that 1931 grit that you don't see in the later, more polished westerns.

Watch it for the scarf drama, stay for the horse.