Bob Steele yells at the desert in The Land of Missing Men (1931)

If you have an hour to kill and love watching guys in high-waisted pants punch each other, this is worth a look. You should probably skip it if you can't stand scratchy audio or plots that don't make much sense.

Bob Steele is the main guy here and he is basically a human spark plug. He is tiny but he moves like he had six cups of coffee right before the camera started rolling.

The story is kind of a mess. Steve (that's Bob) robs a stagecoach which usually makes you the villain, but here he is doing it to "save" Nita from a guy named Lopez.

It is that classic movie logic where kidnapping someone is okay as long as the hero does it. Nita, played by Caryl Lincoln, mostly just looks confused about why she's being dragged around the desert.

• Bob Steele's permanent scowl.
• Al St. John doing weird physical comedy.
• The horses actually look like they are working hard.

Al St. John is the best part of the side cast. His face is made of rubber and he does this bit with a hat that actually made me laugh, even though the joke is probably a hundred years old.

Cinematic perspective: Exploring the visual vocabulary of The Land of Missing Men (1930) through its definitive frames.

The movie feels very... outdoor. Like the crew just found a nice canyon and decided to stay there until they ran out of film.

The audio is pretty rough since it was 1931. Sometimes the wind hits the microphone and it sounds like a jet engine is taking off in the middle of a conversation.

It reminds me a little bit of the clunky feeling in Blackmail, where you can tell the directors were still scared of the actors moving too far away from the hidden microphones.

There is one reaction shot of a guy in the town that lingers for way too long. He just stares at the camera until it gets uncomfortable.

"I'll take care of Lopez my own way!" - Steve, probably, while squinting really hard.

Cinematic perspective: Exploring the visual vocabulary of The Land of Missing Men (1930) through its definitive frames.

The title "The Land of Missing Men" is a bit of a lie. Nobody is really missing, they are all just hanging out at a hideout that is very easy to find.

The final showdown has a lot of smoke. Like, so much smoke you can't even see who is shooting who.

It's not a masterpiece or anything. But it's short and punchy.

I noticed one extra in the background of the town scene who looks like he forgot he was in a movie and was just looking for his car. Little things like that make these old B-Westerns fun to watch today.

If you like dusty boots and simple stories, give it a go. Just don't expect the audio to be kind to your ears.