Calling All Buck Jones Rangers

Buck Rides For Columbia in Forbidden Trail (1932)

Buck Jones fits in a somewhat legend category for fan-love he engendered and heroic way he's said to have died, and though that last was embroidered by tellers since (1942), it just seems natural that Buck would have gone back into a burning nightclub to save others after he'd been safely gotten out (didn't happen, but I'm for printing the legend). More was written on the topic when Jones Junior Rangers were around to deeper explore events of that night. It was their generation's equivalent of the George Reeves tragedy. HQ rendering of Buck westerns, in this case from Columbia On-Demand, helps us toward understanding where Buck's magic lay, though leap, ride, and scrap might be better descriptive terms. Here was a cowboy as often a buffoon, given to lazyboning and practical jokes, thus underestimated by villainy till too late when he routs them. Forbidden Trail is typical of the brand, was made for cheap, but not insultingly so (its $87K in domestic rentals was plenty OK in blighted Depression terms). Columbia's program westerns were ones to beat during this period when both Jones and Tim McCoy rode for them. Hope more of these are forthcoming on disc.