Trivia

This is one of 20 Zane Grey stories, filmed by Paramount in the 1930s, which they sold to Favorite Films for re-release, circa 1950-1952. The failure of Paramount, the original copyright holder, to renew the film's copyright resulted in it falling into public domain, meaning that virtually anyone could duplicate and sell a VHS/DVD copy of the film. Therefore, many of the versions of this film available on the market are either severely (and usually badly) edited and/or of extremely poor quality, having been duped from second- or third-generation (or more) copies of the film.

The 20 Zane Grey stories sold by Paramount to Favorite Films for theatrical re-release, and then to Unity Television Corporation for television broadcast are as follows: The Light of Western Stars/Winning the West (1930), Fighting Caravans/Blazing Arrows (1931), Heritage of the Desert/When the West Was Young (1932), The Mysterious Rider/The Fighting Phantom (1933), The Thundering Herd/Buffalo Stampede (1933), Man of the Forest/Challenge of the Frontier (1933), To the Last Man/Law of Vengeance (1933), Wagon Wheels/Caravans West (1934), Rocky Mountain Mystery/The Fighting Westerner (1935), Drift Fence/Texas Desperadoes (1936), Desert Gold/Desert Storm (1936), The Arizona Raiders/Bad Men of Arizona (1936), Arizona Mahoney/Arizona Thunderbolt (1936), Forlorn River/River of Destiny (1937), Thunder Trail/Thunder Pass (1937), Born to the West/Hell Town (1937), The Mysterious Rider/Mark of the Avenger (1938), Heritage of the Desert/Heritage of the Plains (1939), Knights of the Range/Bad Men of Nevada (1940), and The Light of Western Stars/Border Renegade (1940).

Uncredited film debut of Rod Cameron.

Although this film retained its original title when it was re-released nationally in 1950 by Favorite Films, when it was sold to television, the title was changed to 'Heritage of the Plains', most likely to protect theatrical re-release showings which were still in progress in some territories. In Detroit, it was first telecast Sunday 25 October 1953 on WXYZ (Channel 7), in New York City Wednesday 20 January 1954 on WCBS (Channel 2), and in Los Angeles Saturday 26 June 1954 on KNBH (Channel 4). In San Francisco, it first hit the airwaves Tuesday 10 May 1955 on KPIX (Channel 5).