Vanishing Pioneer (1928)

This silent Paramount Zane Grey Western marked the screen debut of the then 7-year-old Tim Holt. Young Tim's father, Jack Holt, starred as John Ballard, a courageous rancher who leads his neighbors in their righteous fight against corrupt politician John Murdock (William Powell) and his even nastier brother, the local sheriff (Fred Kohler). The brothers are attempting to acquire the valley's water rights by force. In the scuffle, John Murdock shoots and kills a rancher but manages to shift the blame onto Ballard. Banished from the settlement, Ballard returns with renewed fervor and extracts a confession from Murdock. Young Tim appeared in a flashback sequence playing his father as a child. In the '40s, Tim Holt became a B-Western star for RKO, but is today best remembered for playing George Amberson Minafer in Orson Welles' The Magnificent Ambersons and one of the three prospectors in the Humphrey Bogart classic The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948). Tim's sister, Jennifer Holt, appeared in 38 B-Westerns in the '40s. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, Rovi