The Vanishing Riders

1935
4.4| 0h58m| en
Details

Sheriff Bill Jones, in the line of duty, kills outlaw Joe Land and adopts his young son, Tim. They come upon a former silver boomtown, reputed to be haunted, whose only inhabitant is Hiram McDuff, a friend of Bill's. Ranch owner Joan Stanley hires Bill and Tim. Her father has been killed by the gang of Wolf Larson. By mistake, McDuff hires the Larson gang on as ranch hands for Joan. They plan to steal the stock while Bill is away. Tim overhears the plot and informs Bill. Bill and Tim use ghost makeup, skeleton sheets (even outfitting their horses with skeleton-looking blankets) and tricks to rout the superstitious gang members...

Director

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Spectrum Pictures (I)

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Trailers & Clips

Also starring Bill Cody Jr.

Reviews

InformationRap This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.
Dirtylogy It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.
Verity Robins Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.
Loui Blair It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.
dougdoepke Lame oater even by matinee standards. There's little action, no suspense, and hokey scenes building up 10-year old Cody Jr. In fact, it's really the aggressive youngster who thwarts the baddies, while Dad (Cody Sr.) amiably gives up the spotlight. Then too, judging from all the rope tying and twirling, one might think somebody had a big interest in hemp rather than in westerns. There is some hard riding, and a humorous turn from old goat Buster. Also, the spooky dress-up scenes are pretty well done thanks mainly to the costuming and lighting. Nonetheless, events are limply directed with scenes following one another in no particular order. All in all, the hour looks like an effort at literally putting together a kids' western that failed.
Michael_Elliott The Vanishing Riders (1935) * 1/2 (out of 4)Sheriff Bill Jones (Bill Cody) has to shoot a man in the line of duty and afterwards noticing that the man's son Tim (Bill Cody, Jr.) is going to be an orphan. The Sheriff agrees to take the boy as his own and soon the two of them are investigating an old haunted mine where bad guy Wolf Larson (Wally Wales) is working.THE VANISHING RIDERS is a pretty bad "C" Western from the days where these type of films were probably being released weekly. This one here manages to have a few interesting moments throughout but there are just way too many bad ones to keep this thing from being better known. As you can tell, this was mainly a film where Cody and his son could share the screen but sadly this here is one of the weakest aspects. The sugar-coated cute scenes are just annoying and come across more laughable than anything else.The actual performances aren't anything too special either with both Cody's coming across rather bland. Wales doesn't make for much of a bad guy either but I will say Bud Buster gets a few funny lines as the sidekick. The one thing that does somewhat work are the horror elements including the various talks about the mine being haunted as well as the ending where we get a lot of characters dresses up as skeletons. Still, THE VANISHING RIDERS doesn't have enough going for it to make it worth viewing.
JohnHowardReid Oliver Drake has around 217 writing credits (including TV eps), but this one is aimed strictly for the kids – and even they will probably resent its scanty production values and likewise be bored silly. I'll admit that Ethel Jackson is a delight, but her role is small. She made only three movies, alas, but I'll be watching out for her in Six Gun Justice. The other players in this movie are strictly from hunger. Add verbose dialogue, a routine plot, dull direction and minimal production values and we suddenly realize that "vanishing" is indeed the key word in the picture's title. Aside from Miss Jackson, I can't see how adults could relate in any way to this Poverty Row effort with its minimal budget, verbose but totally inconsequential dialogue, contrived yet boring and totally uninteresting and unengaging plot. Available on a mercifully shortened Alpha DVD on a double bill with "Frontier Days".
FightingWesterner After killing an outlaw, Bill Cody quits his job as a sheriff and vows to raise the outlaw's orphaned son. Riding off to start a new life, they soon find themselves in a creepy ghost town where Cody accepts a job working for a lady rancher alongside dubious characters that plan on rustling the cattle as well as riding off with the attractive rancher!The Vanishing Riders is kind of creaky and a bit short on action. However, it has a spirited main villain and a nifty final fifteen-minutes where Cody and son dress up like skeletal riders atop phantom horses, frightening the superstitious rustlers into submission.Things are never really boring. However, one wishes that the first half would have been more interesting.

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