drystyx This is the old time basic Western, and one interesting aspect about it is how it is one of the "models" for most later TV series.Perhaps the best way to illustrate this is by the star billing. Dix and Carillo are top billed, yet it is obvious from the start that Preston Foster and Frances Gifford are the lead romantic interests.Romantic leads were not always the standard. Top billing in "THEM!" went to the chief characters of Gwynn and Whitmore as the eccentric show stealing scientist and the policeman who was followed throughout the story. In "THE RAVEN" the two young romantic lovers play second fiddle to three with star billing in Karloff, Price, and Lorre.So it's not new. What is important is that the character played by Dix is the one who is the strong, solid, stable influence. This is the character who would be the mainstay of just about every TV Western series to follow, and most other TV shows. He was Cheyenne, Bronco, Matt Dillon, Ben and Adam Cartwright.Foster was the mistake prone fellow who lacked the solid fundamentals. He learns some bitter lessons the hard way. Unfortunately, as in real life, it is other people who pay for them. In this case, his first born son does.The villainy of the Mexicans is on the racist side. One interesting bit is that when the two good guys meet up with the villain Carillo, it is their own man who is at fault for the troubles, but they are men of experience and savvy, and recognize Carillo for what he is.Frances makes a very nice entrance, and she is very stunning. She appeals to both the male libido and the female intellect.Dix, though seemingly shadowed in the background, is no more shadowed than Bronco or Ben Cartwright were in their endeavors. They were the main character, because they were not just one man, but representative of a lot of men who would try to make things work. They weren't "Everyman". They were "Everymen".

MartinHafer This B-western sure has a lot of familiar faces--Richard Dix, Preston Foster, Robert Barat, Cliff Edwards, Guinn "Big Boy" Williams, Leo Carrillo and Jack LaRue. While none of these names were exactly big names at the time, this did give the film a bit better cast than you'd usually expect with such a film.Edwards, Williams and Dix run a riverboat along the Louisiana-Texas border just after the Civil War. They get an idea from Leo Carrillo to go into the cattle business--as they see that there is a huge need up north for beef. During the first year, the men (along with Dix's sister) manage to create a prosperous cattle ranch--but into their seemingly charmed life comes Carrillo and his bandit friends to rob them blind. As Carrillo's character reasons, as he gave them the idea for the ranch, the cattle are just as much his!! He disappears from the film for a while...only to appear again much later.Time suddenly passes as you see the years flying past the screen. Dix's daughter has married Foster and they have a child. Unfortunately, instead of Foster relaxing and enjoying his success, he acts as if it's him against everyone--including the railroads! Will he have a change of heart or will he lose everything he loves in the process? See it for yourself to find out what happens next.Some of this film is quite formulaic. The idea of a cattle baron becoming greedy and trying to squeeze out the competition certainly is not new--nor is the notion of two friends becoming estranged in the process. The climax is amazingly good--and very violent! Generally, the acting is very good, but the casting of Carrillo is odd, as he's supposed to be a Cajun--a FRENCH-speaking Cajun. With his heavy Spanish accent, this seemed like an odd choice for the actor to play this role. As for the plot, it's very familiar but entertaining. Not great but worth seeing if you like westerns.

sddavis63 A pretty decent movie about life on the Texas-Louisiana border in the years immediately following the US Civil War. Richard Dix and Preston Foster play Dan Taylor and Paxton Bryce. As the movie opens, they're former Confederate blockade runners running a river boat carrying freight up and down the Sabine River. They run into Dominique Beauchard (Leo Carillo), an unscrupulous Louisiana cattle rancher who rounds up loose cattle in chaotic post-war Texas and runs them across the river to Louisiana. Taylor and Bryce realize the potential of cattle ranching and so give up their riverboat and start buying up land in Texas. This becomes the start of their "American Empire." Foster is really the key to the movie. Dix may receive top billing, but all he does is play off Foster. Foster's Bryce is the character who changes and grows. He has his big dream, gets married to Bryce's sister (Frances Gifford) and they have a son (Merrill Rodin) and heir to the empire. But along the way Bryce changes. Building the empire becomes all that counts. He clashes with the other ranchers in the area by refusing to let them run their cattle over his land, and he blocks progress that would have benefited them all by refusing permission for a railway right of way across his land. The end result is ongoing conflict between Foster and the ranchers, and even between Foster and Taylor, who doesn't like Bryce's way of doing business. Eventually, even his family life falls apart because of his greed. In the midst of it all Beauchard doesn't disappear but remains a thorn in Bryce's side. Providing a few chuckles throughout are the exchanges between Sailaway (Guinn Williams) and Runty (Cliff Edwards), who work for Taylor and Bryce on both the riverboat and at the ranch.All this leads up to a pretty good gunfight at the end (which is really the only extensive gunfight in the movie) and, of course, to Bryce's eventual redemption and reconciliation with those he's pushed away. It all works pretty well. It's obviously a lower budget type of movie and there's nothing fancy about it, but it's good fun and pretty quick. 6/10

bkoganbing I'm sure that the folks on the Texas/Louisiana border must have had a a good laugh or two when Paramount's B picture unit inflicted this one on the war time public. Very simply the area along the Sabine River where the film opens is cotton country just like the rest of the Deep South or at least the Deep South was post Civl War. No big cattle empires there, they're much farther west in Texas, farther than Richard Dix and Preston Foster could ride to set up their empire.The film begins with the two of them partners in a riverboat and when Leo Carrillo tries a theft of their services by not paying them for hauling his cattle, they keep the cattle. And that's the beginning of the big Ponderosa like ranch they start.Along the way Foster marries Dix's sister played by Frances Gifford and feuds with his much smaller neighbors. They also have some further run ins with Leo Carrillo.Anyway, us easterners who like westerns usually don't bother with geographical trifles and it's still a good western from the production mill of Harry Sherman who produced all those Hopalong Cassidy westerns for Paramount. The climax is a blazing, and I mean that literally, gun battle that should have maybe been used on an A production.But I wouldn't have any but western fans look at it.