Riders of Black Mountain

In the old silent film days, studios often filmed stories without a script or the barest of scripts. Sennett Studio in particular worked using this seat of your pants method...telling actors to 'do funny things' and with only the vaguest of instructions from the director! This method, of course, wouldn't work with sound pictures and was soon abandoned. However, the Tim McCoy film "Riders of Black Mountain" looks almost like they filmed it the Sennett manner! Why? Because so much of the story really makes no sense and McCoy's character behaves very oddly to say the least.

I could try to explain the story, but it ain't easy. McCoy comes to town on the stage pretending to be a professional gambler. He's really a US Marshall there to find out why the stage has been robbed so many times. But he doesn't let the honest local sheriff know and sometimes McCoy's plans seem goofy...such as when he holds up the Sheriff and has him free his prisoners! Don't try to understand it too much...it might give you a headache!

I am a big Tim McCoy fan and have seen most of his westerns....which is NOT an easy task. But it does help me to understand that the McCoy films, while low budget, could be exceptional....and this one sure wasn't!