The Texas Rambler (1935) Review - Cheap, Dusty, and Kind of Fun

Skip The Texas Rambler if you hate crackly old audio and guys in giant cowboy hats pointing guns at nothing. But if you have a soft spot for cheap 1930s movies that wrap up in under an hour, this one is actually a bit of a blast. 🤠

The plot is about as simple as a children's book. A bad guy named Flash Carson—which is a hilarious name for a villain—kills a rancher to steal his land.

Then Tom Manning, played by Bill Cody, shows up pretending to be a outlaw to join the gang and find the killer. He has this incredibly goofy grin that he wears even when people are shooting at him, which is deeply distracting.

The way he "infiltrates" the gang is so funny. He basically just walks up, says he's a bad guy, and they are like, "Alright, you're in."

No background check, no questions asked. Gang security back in 1935 was apparently non-existent.

There is a quick stunt scene where a guy falls off a roof, and you can clearly see the edge of the mattress he lands on. I absolutely love mistakes like that in these old films.

It has that same rushed, frantic energy you find in silent-era shorts like The Pride of Pikeville, where nobody had the time or money for a second take. If you want something with a bit more story tension from that era, you might want to try Crossed Signals instead.

The heroine, Billie Conroy, doesn't get to do much besides look worried in a suspiciously clean dress. Her acting is mostly just widening her eyes really big whenever a gun goes off.

Speaking of the guns, the sound effects are so delayed. You see the gun smoke, and then a second later... pop.

It is like watching a movie with bad internet lag. There is also this one henchman who keeps squinting directly at the camera, probably trying to read his lines off a board.

Is this a masterpiece? Absolutely not.

But it is 50-something minutes of pure, harmless nostalgia. Just don't go expecting anything smart.