The Law of the Plains (1929) is a dusty, weirdly simple revenge flick

Should you watch The Law of the Plains today? Only if you have a real soft spot for those old B-westerns that feel like they were filmed in a sandbox.

Fans of Tom Tyler will probably dig it because he’s doing his usual thing. People looking for a deep story or fancy camera tricks should probably stay far away.

It’s one of those movies that feels like a history project more than a movie sometimes. You can almost feel the dust coming off the screen while you watch.

The plot is about as basic as it gets. O'Brien is trying to sell his ranch, which seems like a normal thing to do.

But then Seagrue shows up. Seagrue is the kind of villain who looks like he’s practicing his mean face in the mirror every morning.

He kills O'Brien and just takes over the place. The weirdest part is that he starts calling himself Serrano.

I don't really get why he chose that name. It’s not like he got plastic surgery or moved to a different country.

He just stayed on the same land and changed his name. And apparently, nobody in town thought that was suspicious?

Years go by, and we get Dan O'Brien. He’s the son who has been growing up specifically to be the hero of this movie.

Tom Tyler plays Dan. He’s very tall and stands very straight, like he’s trying to win a posture contest.

He doesn't have a ton of facial expressions. He mostly just looks determined or slightly confused.

I noticed the horses in this movie look really tired. In one scene, they are galloping through the plains and you can see one horse just kind of give up for a second.

The scenery is pretty much just dirt and rocks. It reminded me a bit of the backgrounds in The Land of Long Shadows, but maybe even more empty.

There’s this one part where they are negotiating the sale of the rancho. It goes on for a while.

You can tell the actors are waiting for the director to yell cut. They just keep nodding at each other way longer than normal people do.

When Dan finally decides to avenge his dad, things pick up a little bit. But not much.

The action scenes are a bit clunky. It’s 1929, so they didn't have the best stunt coordination yet.

People kind of just fall over when a gun goes off. Sometimes they fall over before the gun even fires.

I think J.P. McGowan was trying to make it feel intense. He’s the director and he’s also in the movie, which usually means he’s busy.

He’s done a lot of these, like The Galloping Kid. You can tell he knows how to make a movie on a tiny budget.

The film is really short, which is its best quality. It doesn't waste your time with subplots that don't matter.

Cinematic perspective: Exploring the visual vocabulary of The Law of the Plains (1929) through its definitive frames.

It’s just: Dad dies, Bad guy steals name, Son gets mad, Final fight. Done.

Natalie Joyce is in it too. She mostly just has to stand there and look like she’s waiting for something to happen.

I felt bad for her because her character doesn't really get much to do. She’s just the girl in the western.

Specific things I noticed:

• The hats are really, really big. Like, distractingly big.
• There is a lot of squinting. I think the sun was really bright that day.
• One guy wears a vest that looks like it was made from a rug.
• The way they ride horses is actually pretty impressive, even if the horses are tired.

There’s a scene near the end in a canyon. The rocks look cool, but the editing is a bit jumpy.

One second a guy is on top of a hill, and the next second he’s right behind a rock. It’s like he can teleport.

I wonder if they lost some of the film or if they just didn't care about the continuity.

It’s definitely not as polished as something like North of Fifty-Three. That one felt like it had a few more dollars in the budget.

The writing by Sally Winters is okay. It’s hard to tell with these silents sometimes because the title cards do all the heavy lifting.

Some of the dialogue on the cards is pretty dramatic. A lot of talk about justice and honor and stuff like that.

"You killed my father, and now you will pay the price!"

That’s not an exact quote, but it’s basically the vibe of the whole second half. It’s very 1920s.

I do like the title though. The Law of the Plains. It sounds much cooler than the movie actually is.

It makes you think there’s going to be some big philosophical battle. But nope, just a guy named Dan with a gun.

If you've seen one Tom Tyler movie, you’ve mostly seen them all. He’s very consistent at being a stoic cowboy.

He doesn't have the charisma of some of the bigger stars, but he gets the job done. He looks like he belongs in the dirt.

The ending is very abrupt. Like, they ran out of film and just decided to stop.

The bad guy gets what’s coming to him. Dan looks off into the distance. The end.

It’s not a masterpiece, but it’s a decent way to spend an hour if you like old stuff. 🐴

I wouldn't go out of my way to find it though. It’s the kind of thing you watch when it just happens to be on.

Anyway, it’s better than some of the other cheapies from that year. At least it has a clear plot.

It’s just a very simple movie for a simpler time, I guess. Nothing more, nothing less.