... as in too much saddle, not enough praddle in this short B modern dress western from RKO Pathe and director Fred Allen.
Tom Keene is a saddle tramp who encounters a man selling suits. The tramp tells the salesman that he'll buy him a meal at a restaurant if he lets him wear one of his suits into the restaurant. The reason is that he has his eyes set on a good-looking girl who just stepped into the restaurant and he wants to dress to impress.. But things go awry when the hungry haberdasher eats a princely sum of 2.75 worth of food when Tom Keene only has 1.50, and he is tossed into jail for non-payment.
Judge Drake, a crook representing the Long estate, tells the saddle tramp he'll get him out of jail and pay him a thousand dollars to pretend to be the long lost adopted son of the deceased - Jerry Long - who cannot be located. Gordon also wants "Jerry" to convince the other beneficiary, Jane Worth, a niece, to sell her interest in the ghost town she inherited to Gordon. The reason is that the mine in the ghost town, long thought to be played out, still has a rich vein of gold in it and the two crooks want to swindle Jane out of it.
However, the niece, Jane, turns out to be the attractive girl that "Jerry" was eyeing in the restaurant. And although Jerry knows nothing about the actual swindle, his mooning over Jane does distract him from convincing her to sell. I guess if Jane had been less attractive she would have been out of an inheritance. But I digress.
So the Judge and Gordon have hedged their bets on pressuring Jane to sell by making it appear that bandits are overrunning the town AND that the town is haunted. This sets up a chance for Jerry to shine in lots of riding and shooting action, while making Jane think he is some kind of bumbling dandy who doesn't know one end of a horse from another so that the judge and Gordon won't suspect him of helping her.
There's just entirely too much riding in this film with not enough story, even at under an hour. Plus, not until the end is it explained why the crooks want to buy this ghost town, although the presence of an old mine does imply the motivation. In its defense, when the actors are given an opportunity to act they do well.
There's not too much to this little movie, but it is a decent time passer.
