Albert J. Smith Movies

Despite the claim of "an original screenplay by Edward Earl Repp," this entry in Warner Bros.' Dick Foran "singing cowboy" series was a virtual remake of the studio's earlier The Telegraph Trail, whose 1932 screenplay was credited to Kurt Kempler. Prairie Thunder in fact opens with the same montage as its predecessor, and Yakima Canutt and Albert J. Smith play identical characters in both films. Foran and rotund, eternally fatigued Frank Orth replace John Wayne and rotund, eternally fatigued Frank McHugh but that is really the only difference between the films. That, and Foran's lusty renditions of Over the Trail Again, The Prairie is My Home and a few other selections. Foran and Orth are assigned by the army to investigate a series of Indian attacks on the railroad. They quickly discover that the Kiowas have been mislead by unscrupulous trader Smith, who views the coming of the railroad as a threat to his trade monopoly. The Indians capture Foran and heroine Ellen Clancy, but Orth helps the former escape. The cavalry arrives just in time to save the railroad construction site from yet another attack by the Kiowas and Foran personally chases down the villainous Smith. The least expensive entry in the Dick Foran series, Prairie Thunder lifted entire sequences from the earlier John Wayne vehicle, including dialogue scenes between Canutt and Smith and the killing of a telegraph repairman. The film's pieces de resistance, Indian attacks on both a white settlement and the construction site, are lifted almost in toto from a silent Ken Maynard Western with Maynard himself plainly visible in several shots. Foran's blonde leading lady, Ellen Clancy, later signed with Universal and changed her name to Janet Shaw. Paul Panzer, the German-born villain of the 1914 serial The Perils of Pauline, appears unbilled as a medicine man.. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

Having settled a feud between ranchers and homesteaders in his initial Western for Columbia Pictures, handsome Charles Starrett got himself involved in yet another B-Western perennial in his fourth: the fight between cattle ranchers and sheepmen. Lee Jamison (Starrett) and his friend Ed Randall (Edmund Cobb are the only cattlemen not opposed to sheepherders sharing their grazing land. Saloonkeeper Barney Ross (Albert J. Smith, takes umbrage to this decision and attempts to form an opposing vigilante. Blackmailing bank clerk Quigley (Ralph McCullough) into foreclosing on Jamison's ranch, Ross then purchases the place and forbids the sheepmen to enter. When Jamison protests, Ross has him framed in a bank robbery. But at the trial, Quigley is made to reveal his own part in the treachery and Ross is arrested. With the feud settled, Jamison is free to marry rancher's daughter Janet Parker (Mary Blake). Having signed a contract with Columbia in late 1935 (at a reported $400 a weak), Starrett went on to make 131 Westerns, the longest run by any cowboy star for a single studio. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

Typical of Ken Maynard's offbeat approach to westerns, Honor of the Range stars Maynard as twin brothers -- one strong and heroic, the other weak and dishonest. The "good" brother takes his sibling's place to get the goods on all-around villain Rawhide (Fred Kohler Sr.), who manages to live off his ill-gotten gains in grand style. At one point, the plot requires Maynard to pose as a song-and-dance man, which he does with surprising effectiveness. The now-famous climax finds kidnapped heroine Mary (Cecilia Parker) distracting Rawhide's henchman by loudly and furiously playing on the villain's mighty Wurlitzer organ! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Filmed at the Columbia ranch in ten days in September of 1934, this Tim McCoy Western did not enjoy a wide release until October of 1936, at which time the star had left Columbia in favor of small-time Puritan Pictures. McCoy played cowboy Tim Hamlin who arrives in a town plagued by a gang of cattle rustlers. Obtaining a job at the Ortega Ranch, Tim comes to the aid of the owner, Don Rafael (Carlos De Valdez), who cannot meet his payments to villainous saloon keeper Bonner (Hooper Atchley) because his cattle are being stolen. When Don Rafael is wounded in yet another raid, Tim, whose horse is found sweaty from a hard ride, is suspected of the attack and forced to flee a group of vengeful vigilantes. Bonner's chief lieutenant, Ed Walton (Alden Chase), is willing to help the Ortegas if only Dolores Ortega (Sheila Manners) agrees to marry him. Arrested by Town Marshal Willoughby (Joe Sawyer), Tim manages to escape and force Bonner to confess. Willoughby arrives to arrest the villains and Tim is free to romance lovely Dolores. The Prescott Kid was one of nine McCoy Westerns directed by David Selman, a former assistant director. The film was in all likelihood kept out of wide release in 1934 because Columbia was busy promoting McCoy in a series of (unsuccessful) non-Westerns. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

Directed by Tenny Wright, The Telegraph Trail features John Wayne as John Trent, a calvary scout who has been sent to put a stop to sleazy opportunist Gus Lynch's (Albert J. Smith) crooked business dealings. Lynch (Smith) has convinced High Wolf (Yakima Canutt), a local Native American tribe leader, that his people must delay the completion of the first transcontinental telegraph line unless they wanted their entire tribe to be wiped out by the consequent influx of white men. This action, which only benefits Lynch's (Smith) greed, creates an uprising from the Native Americans that results in the harm of the men working on the construction of this historical telegraph system. Luckily, the injustice doesn't last for long once Trent (Wayne) comes to town. The Telegraph Trail also features actors Frank McHugh and Otis Harlan, as well as actress Marceline Day. ~ Tracie Cooper, All Movie Guide

Weather-beaten Harry Carey stars as an old-time Westerner who ends up in jail on a trumped-up charge. Carey busts out of the calaboose to prove his innocence and unmask the genuine culprit, Albert J. Smith. It turns out that Smith is in league with a mysterious frontier Fu Manchu, who's been operating a lucrative alien-smuggling racket. Our hero likewise reveals the identity of the mystery villain, who spends most of the picture as a mere shadow on the wall. Based on a novel by Murray Lenister, Border Devils evidently underwent a great deal of rewriting from script to screen, if its pressbook (containing an entirely different synopsis) is any indication. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In his first Western for 1932, Buck Jones went mostly for laughs playing a former Texas ranger inheriting an Arizona ranch together with an uppity girl (Lina Basquette). The will stipulates that neither may sell without the other's consent but Lina is inclined to take an offer from smooth-talking Easterner Alan Roscoe. Jones, however, refuses to sell and the stage is set for a battle of the sexes. But there is silver in them there hills, which the Easterner has known all along. Tired of waiting for a mutual decision, Roscoe and his chief henchman, Wallace MacDonald, kidnap the girl but she is saved in the nick of time by Jones. Have the former combatants fallen in love along the way? Why, of course they have. Lina Basquette married the third of her nine husbands on the set of this film and Jones threw her a party that by all accounts was more entertaining than the film itself. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

In this mystery, a detective is called in to investigate the fate of a derelict ship that was found floating off the coast of Port Said. But for a madman and a woman, the ship is empty. The investigator soon reveals a plot involving the destruction of the vessel and insurance money. When the crew found out about it, they mutinied. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

An average Buck Jones oater from Columbia Pictures, Forbidden Trail featured a girl newspaper publisher, Mary Middleton (Barbara Weeks), forced into writing sympathetic editorials about corrupt political boss "Cash" Karger (Wallis Clark). A former ranch foreman, Tom Devlin (Jones) rescues the girl and her mother (Mary Carr) from a fire set by Karger but is then framed in the murder of a rustler (Albert J. Smith). Aided by his horse, Silver, Tom breaks out of jail and collects enough evidence to bring Karger and his gang to justice. Studio records list Forbidden Trail as a 1932 release but the film was not widely distributed until 1933 and didn't open in New York until November of 1936. By then, Jones had left Columbia in favor of Universal. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

On his way to claim an inheritance, Tom, aka Cuthbert Chauncey Dale (Buck Jones), and his pal "Swede" (John Oscar) witness a stagecoach hold-up. The lone gunman escapes but leaves the loot behind and Chauncey and "Swede" soon find themselves arrested for the crime. They manage to escape, however, and later befriends the gunman, Starrett (Wallace MacDonald), whom Tom invites to work on his inherited ranch. Along with a dilapidated ranch house, the property also contains a strip of land separating the wealthy Preston spread from an especially rich pasture. After quarreling with supercilious Lou Preston (Ethel Kenyon), Tom chases her off his property, but Joe Moore (Albert J. Smith), the Preston foreman who is in love with Lou, mistakes the scene for a lovers' tiff. When Tom mortgages his ranch in order to buy cattle, Moore has his buddy Bill Saunders (Robert Kortman) "sell" him cattle stolen from the Preston herd. Believing the newcomer to be a common rustler, an angry Lou gives Tom 24 hours to leave or else! Just then, Sheriff Mac (Philo McCullough arrives to arrest Tom for the stagecoach robbery. Everything is ironed out, however, when a witness to the robbery identifies Starrett, who is killed in a gunfight with Moore. A recalcitrant Lou apologizes to Tom and they embrace. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

The second in a series of Buck Jones westerns produced by Sol Lesser for Columbia release, Shadow Ranch is the story of a cowboy who comes to the rescue of an embattled female rancher (Marguerite de la Motte). She is being driven off her land by opportunistic saloon owner Albert J. Smith, but the heroic Buck manages to beat the villain into submission. Filmed at the Tiffany-California studios, a rental facility, Shadow Ranch was popular enough for the story to be trotted out again less than a year later as Sunset Trail starring Ken Maynard. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

Tom Mix's penultimate silent western, this film was executive produced by Joseph P. Kennedy (the father of the president), whose small-time FBO company was about to merge into the new RKO Radio conglomerate. Unfortunately, neither The Drifter nor Mix's final film for Kennedy, The Big Diamond Robbery (1929), were high points in a career that had brought the former Selig player fame and fortune as the most beloved western star of the 1920s. The Drifter incorporated several airplane stunts as Mix's deputy marshal goes after a gang of dope smugglers, the leader of which turns out to be aviator Albert J. Smith. Mix and a colleague (weasel-looking Barney Furey) go undercover on Dorothy Dwan's ranch, where they discover a hidden gold mine. Unfortunately, Kennedy was not willing to pay for stunt-flyers, and the airplane scenes were all-too-obviously filmed on the ground. Mix left Hollywood following the conclusion of his contract with Kennedy and travelled with the Sells-Floto Circus. The aging star returned in 1932 with a series for Universal, but although the films proved profitable, the Mix magic was gone. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide