This is a western but it’s a contemporary western (which seems to be true also of the other film included in the Blu-Ray set). This is a movie made in the 1920s, and set in the 1920s. So while part of the action takes place in the West this is not quite the Old West, not quite the Wild West.
Tom Mix is Tom Markham and he’s in New York. He meets a girl and she’s on horseback but the second time he meets her she’s been arrested for speeding in her sports car. She is Ellen Brooks (Kathryn McGuire).
Her very rich daddy has just bought her a fabulously valuable diamond.
The diamond is stolen. Tom steps in to help retrieve the stone.
To punish her for being a bad girl Ellen is banished to the ranch in Arizona. Tom seems to be the manager of the ranch.
The thieves are still after that diamond and now they’re in Arizona too.
There’s a stagecoach holdup and a war party of braves from the local tribe attacks the stagecoach as well. But appearance can be deceptive.
So this a hybrid film. The first half is an urban crime thriller with shootouts with machine-guns and car chases. Later it becomes a western, but not really a western. Tom does some trick riding and chases the bad guys’ car on horseback. It’s really just a crime thriller that features a cowboy.
Tom Mix is no great shakes as an actor but all he really has to do is look like a square-jawed cowboy hero and ride a horse well and and he manages those things easily enough.
Kathryn McGuire is likeable enough. She isn’t really a Spoilt Rich Bad Girl. She just needed to get out of the city and meet a handsome cowboy.
I’d be willing to see more Tom Mix movies although I would like to see him in a full-blown western.
The Big Diamond Robbery is recommended.
It looks terrific on Blu-Ray and they found a tinted print. I love tinted movies.
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DeleteDee, good write-up of THE BIG DIAMOND ROBBERY(filmed 1928-29, released 1929), which I've never viewed. What is the title of the other Tom Mix movie in the set? Is it a silent?
ReplyDeleteAbout these movies not being set in the old West or Wild West. The old West didn't end in 1890 or 1900. The old Wild West was still very much present in the 1920's, but not in New York City, of course. There were still local stagecoach lines in operation in Arizona and in 1924 there was an Inde'(Apache) raid through southwestern New Mexico and southeastern Arizona. Still horseback outlaws robbing banks in 1923. It took a while for the old Wild West to die out.
A good traditional Tom Mix Western movie is RIDERS OF THE PURPLE SAGE(filmed 1924, released 1925). The time is in the late 1880's, and Tom isn't wearing a white hat, but he isn't an outlaw.
Well, I'm finally able to comment on your sit again. I've been having trouble, and hopefully I've fixed the problem, for now.
The other movie is a much earlier Tom Mix silent future, Sky High (1922). I haven't watched it yet.
DeleteI take your point about the West still existing in the 1920s and it does give The Big Diamond Robbery an interesting feel - the hero moves back and forth between the modern world and the world of the Old West which still exists outside the cities. And it does derive some humour from this. The country folk like to scare city folk by staging fake stagecoach robberies.
I'll keep a lookout for Riders of the Purple Sage.