Yellowstone (1936) review - A goofy retro mystery with bad geyser effects

If you have an hour to kill and love old-school mysteries with national park scenery, then yes, Yellowstone is worth a watch tonight. 🌲 But if you expect a deep, modern thriller or actual logical detective work, you will probably turn this off after ten minutes.

It is basically a B-movie postcard with some murder thrown in.

The whole thing starts with an ex-con getting shot right by a bubbling geyser. It is such a dramatic way to go, but the steam looks totally fake.

Then we get the son of a bank robber looking for some hidden money from twenty years ago. Everyone is running around the woods looking for this cash.

I kept thinking about how much it felt like Murder on the Campus, just swap the college hallways for some pine trees. 🥾 It has that same quick, cheap mystery vibe where nobody acts like a real person.

The park rangers in this movie are way too relaxed about everything. There is a literal murder, and they are mostly just chatting and riding horses like they are on vacation.

Andy Devine is in this, and his voice is always a trip. He sounds like a squeaky hinge on a barn door, but you can't help but smile when he is on screen.

The main guy, played by Henry Hunter, is trying to find his dad's loot. He meets a girl, Judith Barrett, who is also wandering around the park for her own reasons.

They have this instant romance that makes zero sense. But hey, it was 1936, and people in movies fell in love after two minutes of talking back then.

There is one scene where a guy gets trapped near a hot spring. You can see the steam, but it looks mostly like someone is just blowing smoke from off-camera.

The footage of the actual park looks like it was filmed on a completely different day by a different crew. The lighting changes completely when they cut from the actors to the stock footage.

And the plot gets incredibly messy near the end. Everyone just sort of shows up in the same cabin at the exact same time.

It is like a cartoon where all the characters run into each other in a dark room. You just have to laugh at how convenient it all is.

I did like the bad guy, though. Paul Fix has this great, mean face that just screams "I am up to no good."

He does not even have to do much. He just stands there, squints his eyes, and looks sketchy.

Is it a masterpiece? Absolutely not.

But it has a weird, cozy charm if you like old black-and-white silliness.

A few things I noticed:

• That one hat the main girl wears looks like an upside-down flower pot. 👒
• The sound of the horses galloping is way louder than the actual dialogue sometimes.
• The movie gets noticeably better once the characters stop trying to explain the bank robbery and just start shooting at each other.

If you want something heavy, go watch something else. But if you want some goofy retro fun with some cool old cars, give it a spin.