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Riders of Death Valley
A MILLION-DOLLAR SUPER SERIAL! With a thousand teeming thrills in 15 exciting chapters!
The Saturday matinee crowd got two cowboy stars for the price of one in this lavishly budgeted western serial starring former singing cowboy Dick Foran and Buck Jones. The latter contributed deadpan humor to the proceedings, making Jones perhaps the highest paid B-western comedy relief in history. The two heroes defend the Death Valley borax miners from an outlaw gang headed by Wolf Reade. An extraordinarily strong cast -- for a serial, at least -- supported the stars, headed by Charles Bickford as Reade, Leo Carillo, Lon Chaney, Jr., and silent screen star Monte Blue. Leading lady Jeanne Kelly later changed her name to Jean Brooks and starred in the atmospheric RKO thriller The Seventh Victim (1943). Universal claimed to have spent $1 million on this serial and made sure to get their money's worth by endlessly recycling the action footage in serials and B-westerns for years to come.
Cast
- Dick Foran as Jim Benton
- Leo Carrillo as Pancho Lopez
- Buck Jones as Tombstone
- Charles Bickford as Wolf Reade
- Guinn 'Big Boy' Williams as Borax Bill
- Lon Chaney Jr. as Henchman Butch
- Noah Beery Jr. as Smokey
- Jean Brooks as Mary Morgan (as Jeanne Kelly)
- James Blaine as Joseph Kirby
- Monte Blue as Rance Davis
- Glenn Strange as Tex, a Benton Rider
- Roy Barcroft as Henchman Dirk
Details
- Director
- Ford Beebe and Ray Taylor
- Released
- July 1, 1941
- Runtime
- 4h 43m
- Genres
- Action, Western
- Studio
- Universal Pictures
- Status
- Released
- TMDB score
- 6.8 / 10 from 2 votes
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