The Lightning Warrior: Rin Tin Tin is the only reason to watch this.

You should probably only watch this if you have a massive soft spot for old German Shepherds or you really like seeing how early talkies struggled with outdoor sound. If you’re looking for a tight, modern thriller, The Lightning Warrior will drive you absolutely crazy by chapter four.

It’s a serial, which means it was meant to be seen in tiny chunks once a week. Watching it all at once feels like eating a whole loaf of bread without any water.

The main reason anyone still talks about this is Rin Tin Tin. He is honestly the best actor in the whole thing 🐕.

There is this one moment where Rinty has to look "suspicious" at a door, and he does it better than the human leads do their big dramatic reveals. He just has these intense eyes that make you believe there's actually a guy in a wolf skin running around the hills.

The plot is about this guy called the Wolf Man who is scaring the locals. He isn't a real werewolf, unfortunately. That would have been much cooler.

Instead, he's just a guy in a weird outfit who wants to steal land or something. It’s the kind of mystery that Scooby-Doo would eventually do a hundred times better.

Frankie Darro plays the kid, Jimmy Carter. No, not that Jimmy Carter. He’s fine, I guess, but he spends a lot of time yelling for the dog. "Rinty! Rinty!" 🗣️

The audio is pretty rough in some spots. Since it was 1931, they were still figuring out how to hide microphones in the bushes. Sometimes the background wind is louder than the actors talking about the "secret plans."

I noticed a scene where a guy is supposed to be punched, and the fist misses his face by at least six inches. He still falls down like he got hit by a truck. It made me laugh out loud in my living room.

It’s very repetitive. Every chapter ends with someone falling off a cliff or getting trapped in a cave. Then the next chapter starts and you realize they just rolled out of the way at the last second.

The "Wolf Man" is supposed to be scary, but his costume looks like someone draped a dusty rug over a tall guy. It’s more confusing than threatening.

I did enjoy seeing George Brent in a small role before he became a big star. He looks so young here it’s almost distracting. It's like seeing a high school photo of a famous person you know.

If you liked the spooky house vibes of The Cat Creeps, you might appreciate the way they use shadows here. But this is way more focused on dusty trails and horses.

The stunts are actually pretty impressive when you consider there were no safety wires. When a horse falls, it looks like it really hurt. That part is actually a bit hard to watch sometimes.

Rinty does this jump through a window in chapter two that is just incredible. He doesn't hesitate at all. He just launches himself like a furry missile.

There’s a lot of "filler" in the middle chapters. You can tell they only had enough story for a ninety-minute movie but had to stretch it into four hours. Some scenes of people just riding horses go on for way too long.

I started checking my phone during chapter seven. The music is also very repetitive—it’s the same three dramatic notes every time the villain shows up 🎵.

It reminds me a bit of the silly energy in Horse Play, but with more gunfights. It’s definitely a product of its time.

The ending is a bit of a letdown. After twelve chapters of build-up, the unmasking of the Wolf Man feels like a shrug. You probably won't even remember the guy's name ten minutes after it finishes.

But man, that dog was something else. He really carried the whole production on his back. Give him all the treats.

Is it a masterpiece? No. Is it a fun piece of history to have on in the background while you do something else? Sure. Just don't expect it to make a lot of sense if you think about it for more than five seconds.

One more thing—the way they filmed the chase scenes makes the hills look endless. It’s like they just kept running around the same three rocks. I think I recognized the same cactus in four different episodes.

Anyway, watch it for the dog. Ignore the humans. That’s usually good advice for most movies from this era anyway 🐾.