The Dude Ranger (1934)

"He's the meanest, stubbornnest, most conceited, high-hat dude tenderfoot I've ever seen," Irene Hervey says of George O'Brien in The Dude Ranger, "but how he can kiss!" And that's the kind of Western this Zane Grey adaptation is: more talk -- and some of it quite amusing -- than action. There is the Utah desert scenery of course but Hervey, who appeared "by arrangement with MGM," and most of the supporting cast seem more at home in drawing rooms. And that is where director Edward F. Cline keeps them most of the time, playing out a sort of prairie version of The Taming of the Shrew. With that kind of sophistication, there isn't much LeRoy Mason and his cutthroats can do, other than stay back and listen to the barbs fly. Sol Lesser used the Zane Grey connection and threw out the rest in the 1937 Smith Ballew opus Roll Along Cowboy, which is sometimes listed as a remake but isn't. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide