The Red Rider Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		2.0
Audio		3.0
Extras		1.5
Overall		2.5

The Red Rider Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman December 11, 2019

Whom do you think of when asked to name an iconic western film star? My hunch is the vast majority of people would probably default to someone like John Wayne, but of course Wayne’s stardom came largely in the late 1930s on into the 1940s, and there were decades of cinematic “guys in white hats” long before then. Some early western stars like Tom Mix were in fact among some of the first “superstars” of their era, and it’s notable that none other than John Wayne himself evidently once remarked that (relatively) early western icon Buck Jones was one of his personal heroes. Perhaps making this connection especially relevant is the fact that The Red Rider is a remake of a somewhat earlier film entitled The Range Feud, a film which not so coincidentally co-starred Buck Jones and John Wayne. Jones was a multimedia force in his day, churning out not just a patently amazing number of films (including serials like the one currently under discussion), but also radio and even merchandising tie-ins, then a somewhat more rare phenomenon than it is today. The Red Rider will probably strike jaded modern day viewers as unabashedly silly a lot of the time, and it follows the well worn tradition of serials of introducing a supposed “cliffhanger” at the end of every episode (but the last one, of course), a seemingly impossible to escape from conundrum that in fact never actually amounts to much more than a momentary and passing tribulation. The serial, a 1934 effort from Universal, does have a fun supporting cast, and it moves along briskly through its fifteen chapters.

Some of what I assume is key art for the film's original release reproduced on the cover of this Blu-ray touts The Red Rider as being "a cyclone of western action and thrills", and while there are some kind of fun set pieces scattered throughout the fifteen episodes, there's also quite a bit of time given over to so-called character beats, including some vignettes which are obviously aiming to milk a somewhat more comedic tone. The basic setup of the plot is that Sheriff "Red" Davidson (Buck Jones) risks his good name and reputation to defend his best friend "Silent" Slade (Grant Withers), who has been railroaded into a murder conviction and is headed for a public hanging himself. Slade has a romantic involvement with his supposed victim's daughter Joan McKee (Margaret La Marr), which is an ostensible reason for his motive for murder, but which unsurprisingly ends up playing into one of several subplots The Red Rider dishes out.

The “real” villain is revealed rather early in this enterprise, and is a snarling murderer and thief named Jim Breen (Walter Miller). Through plot mechanics which are pretty much just plopped down as a given, “Red” and “Silent” work both from within Breen’s gang and from the outside in order to bring the bad guy down. An innocent by-rancher (that’s a thing in a serial like this) named Bob Maxwell (Charles French) has gotten sucked into Breen’s nefarious doings “unawares”, and because there are fifteen episodes to fill, Maxwell’s pretty daughter Marie (Marion Shilling) is also shoehorned into the proceedings, including in a weird romantic triangle involving Buck and another cowboy.

There are some engaging chases here, and Buck makes an appealing if kind of dandy-ish hero. The serial takes some kind of surprising (and perhaps prescient) pokes at various pop culture issues of the day, including what would become the temporary death knell for Buck Jones’ own career — the rise of “singing cowboy” movies in the late 1930s and early 1940s. As was standard operating procedure for serials back in the day, some of the supposed "cliffhangers" are just out and out cheats. The first episode ends with Buck supposedly getting trampled by a horde of marauding deputies on horseback. As the second episode starts up, the deputies all stop just in the nick of time, saving Buck for thirteen more patently ridiculous escapes from non-existent danger.

The Red Rider Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Red Rider is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of VCI Entertainment and MVD Visual with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.32:1. This is another kind of odd looking release from VCI, one that is plagued with apparent filtering, giving a lot of the presentation a kind of smooth, video-like appearance, even though if you do take the time to freeze frame, there is a somewhat splotchy vestigial grain field still in evidence. There is still much more evident grain in the many opticals, but you can note a sudden uptick in "clarity" after these moments (circa 1:30 in the first episode is a good example), where grain pretty much disappears. The element utilized (advertised as "original 35 mm film elements", which of course could mean anything from a negative to a print, with my serious hunch being it's the latter) does show signs of damage, with recurrent scratches and nicks. A lot of the damage can accrue around some of the fun segues which involve a series of opticals like wipes or quasi-iris effects. Contrast is a little anemic looking, and in fact all fifteen episodes have a kind of grayish undertone which can perhaps be made out in some of the screenshots accompanying this review.

The Red Rider Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Perhaps surprisingly, The Red Rider's LPCM 2.0 mono track has made it through the age related guantlet arguably better than the video side of things. That said, this has an undeniably narrow, boxy and rather thin sound that is endemic to its age and the recording technologies utilized. Some of the foley and other sound effects are kind of charmingly quaint. Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly, if again somewhat thinly, throughout.

The Red Rider Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• The Filming of the West Part 7 (1080p; 29:42) is evidently culled from an unaired television series from the 1970s based on a book by Jon Tuska, who appears here as a host. This episode covers some Buck Jones biographical data. This comes with a warning about video quality.


• The Red Rider Featurette by Daniel Griffith (1080p; 7:12) offers Charles Lee Jackson's comments on this serial in particular and Buck Jones in general.


• The Red Rider Poster and Photo Gallery (1080p; 3:24)


• The Red Rider Trailer (1080p; 3:07)

Note: All of these supplements can be found on Disc Two of this two disc set.

The Red Rider Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Never having seen it, and judging solely by the credits listed on IMDb, I'm assuming that maybe John Wayne had the Grant Withers role in the first film version of this tale, and watching The Red Rider has at least made me curious to try to track down The Range Feud, to see its similarities to and differences from this version. This is a typically hokey western serial that doesn't shy away from some pure comedy, but which makes sure to dole out regular horse chases and other manly activities. Video is problematic but audio is generally fine with an understanding that this is a mid-thirties track, for those considering a purchase.