Ruth Mix Movies
Despite his clout in the industry, Tom Mix's brunette daughter enjoyed only a rather sporadic screen career. At age 14 she starred in at least three Westerns produced by Ward Lascelle, but they quickly disappeared among the usual flotsam of poverty row quickies and she abandoned films in favor of vaudeville. A stint with the Earl Carroll's Vanities was none too successful and neither was a brief marriage to Broadway actor Douglas Gilmore which papa Mix reportedly had annulled. Ruth Mix returned to the screen in four cheap Westerns with Rex Bell and former child actor Buzz Barton from 1934 to 1935, and there were several serials from low-budget company Stage and Screen. But producers apparently thought the Mix name would be enough and gave her very little to work with. Leaving Hollywood for good in 1936, Ruth Mix traveled with her father's wild west show before retiring to private life with her second husband, a rancher. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
In his penultimate western for small-scale Diversion Pictures, Hoot Gibson enjoyed the company of no less than two pretty leading ladies: June Gale, his current off-screen girlfriend, and Ruth Mix, the daughter of legendary cowboy hero Tom Mix. Gibson played a U. S. Marshal going undercover as the notorious bandit "The Morning Glory Kid" in order to infiltrate a gang of rustlers headed by nasty Mort Ringer (Stanley Blystone). Both Misses Gale and Mix get in his way on occasion and Gibson's true identity is revealed with nearly calamitous results. But when all seems lost, Miss Mix manages to alert the sheriff's posse, a happy turn of events that allows the aging hero to continue romancing Miss Gale. The latter never became the third Mrs. Gibson as has been reported elsewhere but instead married eccentric pianist Oscar Levant. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Hoot Gibson, Ruth Mix, (more)
- 1936
The first of three inexpensive serials produced by Louis Weiss for Poverty Row company Stage and Screen Productions, The Black Coin centered around 12 black coins, who together form a treasure map. The plot was as old as the Hollywood Hills, and didn't quite deliver the same punch by 1936, despite the addition of the popular G-men to the proceedings. Secret Service agents Ralph Graves and Ruth Mix go in search of the villains who are using the Caswell Shipping Company as a front to their smuggling operation when they stumble over the secret of The Black Coin. Ruth Mix, the daughter of Tom, furnished much-needed name value to all three Stage and Screen serials. William Desmond, a major serial star in the silent era, plays a bit as a bartender in The Black Coin, while, more amusingly, veteran stunt man Yakima Canutt appears as a character named "Ed McMahon." ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
- 1936
Produced by poverty row organization Stage and Screen, this less-than-faithful serialized version of the historical battle seems to have rounded up every B-Western player not otherwise engaged at the time. That fact added to a couple of impressive sets drew favorable reviews for the serial's initial chapters, but the overall verdict proved negative. A secret arrow and the secret key to a hidden stash of gold is lost during one of several skirmishes brought about by Young Wolf (Chief Thundercloud). The arrow is recovered by Major Trent (Josef Swickard) and his daughter Barbara (Nancy Caswell) who, unaware of its secret purpose, become the target of various nefarious villains, including Blade (Reed Howes), a renegade Indian. Scout Kid Cardigan (Rex Lease) and General George Armstrong Custer (Frank McGlynn, Jr.) attempt to prevent an all-out war over the arrow, but their endeavors only lead to the infamous Last Stand. A tragic event in American history is thus once again reduced to a mere fight for mammon. A great many well-known B-Western players parade in and out of the serial briefly portraying various historical figures, including Helen Gibson as Calamity Jane, Ruth Mix (Tom's daughter) as Elizabeth Custer, Ted Adams as Buffalo Bill Cody, Howling Wolf as Sitting Bull, Allen Greer as Wild Bill Hickock and High Eagle as Chief Crazy Horse. Stage and Screen and associate producer George M. Merrick announced ambitious plans to film four additional serials, but the company was dissolved in late 1936, yet another victim of the Great Depression and an inability to secure distribution. Custer's Last Stand was also released in a 90-minute feature version. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
The second of three serials produced by the Weiss Bros. for low-budget Stage and Screen Productions, The Clutching Hand brought back that eminent detective Craig Kennedy, who had first appeared in Pearl White's The Exploits of Elaine back in 1915. Now played by the veteran Jack Mulhall, another holdover from the early silent era, Kennedy is hired to solve the mysterious disappearance of Dr. Paul Gironda, whose formula for the manufacture of synthetic gold is coveted by a mysterious cloaked villain known only as The Clutching Hand. Along with Dr. Gironda's nubile daughter, Verna (Marion Shilling), and young newspaper reporter Walter Jameson (Rex Lease), Kennedy is aided or opposed in his quest by an impressive array of unemployed former silent screen "names" that include William Farnum, Reed Howes, Mae Busch, Bryant Washburn, Franklyn Farnum, and Snub Pollard, not to mention newcomers like Charles Locher (later known as Jon Hall) and Tom Mix's daughter, Ruth. The best made and most successful of Stage and Screen's three chapterplays (the company had promised six or seven), The Clutching Hand was also released in a 70-minute highly edited feature version. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
- 1935
The second of four inexpensive Westerns starring Rex Bell, Ruth Mix, and Buzz Barton, Gunfire seems to have offered employment to nearly every B-Western player not otherwise engaged. Bell and Mix (Tom's daughter) play Jerry Dunbar and Mary Vance, partners in the Double D Ranch. The ranch is also home to Danny (Barton), a kid whom Jerry has rescued from crooked gambler Les Daggett (Lew Meehan), and Sally Moore (Mary Jane Irving), Daggett's stepdaughter, who has refused to marry nasty Alex McGregor (Ted Adams). While a jealous Mary is quietly seething over the presence of Sally, the Double D barn is set ablaze by the mad McGregor clan, who desires the property, and Jerry is framed in the killing of another neighbor. Almost lynched -- twice -- Jerry and Danny arrive back at the still burning Double D just in time to save Mary from the lecherous Dan MacGregor (Philo McCullough). The nasty McGregor family finally rounded up, Jerry proposes to Mary -- forced at gunpoint by nutty Aunt Lydia (Fern Emmett). Gunfire was produced by Marion H. Kohn and Alfred T. Mannon for low-budget Resolute Pictures as part of a series of six Westerns. But due to a glut on the market and a less than enthusiastic response from exhibitors, only four films were ultimately released. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
- 1935
The third of four threadbare Westerns produced by Resolute Pictures and starring Rex Bell, Ruth Mix, and Buzz Barton, Fighting Pioneers was rather too haphazardly made for its epic theme. Crow Indian Chief Blackhawk (Chief Standing Bear) is mortally wounded in a failed attempt to attack a wagon train. Escorted by Cavalry Lieutenant Bentley (Bell), Wa-No-Na (Mix) brings her father back to the reservation to die. Before he expires, the chief makes his daughter the leader of the tribe, to the chagrin of Eagle Feathers (Chief Thundercloud). The latter conspires with crooked trading post operator Hadley (Stanley Blystone) to attack yet another wagon train, but Wa-No-Na and Bentley successfully foil the attack. With the villains behind bars, Wa-No-Na signs a peace treaty and leads her tribe to new hunting grounds. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
- 1935
While on a train taking them to prison, a convicted killer and a safecracker manage to engineer their escape. They show up at a ranch, where they discover that a local cattle company is trying to cheat the pretty female owner of the ranch out of her property. They determine to help her keep her land. ~ Brian Gusse, All Movie Guide
- 1931
Red Fork Range stars Wally Wales, who enjoyed a lengthy starring career in "B"-westerns before entering the character-actor ranks under the moniker of Hal Taliaferro. The star plays Wally Hamilton, virtually the only "good guy" in the aptly named community of Hangtown. After winning a stagecoach race, Wally makes short work of a band of marauding Indians, then rescues heroine Ruth Farrel (played by Tom Mix's daughter Ruth) from the clutches of the evil Black Bard (Al Ferguson). Saving the film from wallowing in a morass of cliches is the winning performance by Wally Wales, who invests his stock character with a refreshing sense of humor. Featured in the cast is ace stuntman Cliff Lyons, who undoubtedly had a hand in staging the film's Grade-A action sequences. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Wally Wales, Ruth Mix, (more)
- 1928
Long though lost, Four Sons reemerged in the 1960s, proving anew that the silent films of director John Ford were every bit as accomplished as his talkies. More "Germanic" in tone and texture than later Ford films, Four Sons is the story of the Bernle family of Bavaria. Mother Bernle (Margaret Mann) dotes upon her four sons Joseph (James Hall), Johann (Charles Morton), Franz (Francis X. Bushman Jr.) and Andres (George Meeker), but is powerless in guiding their destinies. When WW I breaks out, her sons march off to the front: one of the boys fights for the AEF, the others for the Kaiser. The film's most poignant sequence takes place on the battlefield, when one of the sons stumbles upon his mortally wounded brother. Though the dying man's plaintive cries are heard on the Fox Movietone soundtrack, the scene itself is effectively played in pantomime. An updated version of Four Sons, wherein the locale was switched from Bavaria to Czechoslovakia, was filmed in 1940, starring Don Ameche, Alan Curtis, Robert Lowery and George Ernest. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Margaret Mann, James Hall, (more)
