Robbers' Roost
Cast & Crew
Louis King
George O'brien
Maureen O'sullivan
Walter Mcgrail
Maude Eburne
Reginald Owen
Film Details
Technical Specs
Synopsis
In Arizona, when a shootout erupts during a card game, Texan Jim Wall, now and then a cowboy, crashes a chair into a window and escapes. At a river, he demands that the ferryboat driver take him across even though the man has instructions to wait for Hank Hays, foreman of the Star Ranch. Hays arrives and provokes a fight with Jim, who knocks him into the water. Upon seeing Jim's shooting ability, Hays realizes that he would be a good man for his cattle rustling scheme and hires him as a hand on the ranch, which is owned by Englishman Cecil Herrick, who takes a liking to Jim. Hays and his cohorts plan to rustle the cattle in a month. When Herrick's sister Helen, who owns half the ranch, arrives by train, Jim, to his displeasure, is sent to meet her. During their encounters with one another, Helen tries to taunt Jim, but ends up being humiliated. While riding one day, Helen taunts Jim to jump a cliff and get a white flower on the other side. Jim retrieves the flower and, seeing that she is terrified because of the chance he took, kisses her and rides off. That night, Jim tells Hays he is quitting, but Hays warns him to see the deal through. Helen sees Jim preparing to leave and calls him a quitter. She then asks him to return something he took and passionately kisses him back. The next day, when Jim tells Helen that he has decided to stay because of the kiss, she acts flippant and says that she has kissed many men and that it doesn't mean anything. Jim goes with the ranch hands to round up the cattle in preparation to rustle them that night, but when a stampede occurs and he sees, from the other side of a gorge, Helen racing on her horse just ahead of the cattle, he jumps with his horse into the water, swims across and then rides toward her. When she is thrown, Jim wrestles a bull and blocks her with it to keep her from being trampled. At night, Jim tells the one cowhand he likes, Happy Jack, that he can't go through with the theft and convinces Happy to ride to the sheriff. Brad, one of the rustlers, overhears them and kills Happy on his way to town. Meanwhile, Jim goes to tell the Herricks, but Helen, thinking that he has come to propose, is embarrassed that he intends to speak in front of her brother, who has warned her that she and Jim are not of the same class. She calls Jim crude and says she would not marry him if he were the last man on earth. Hays and his men converge on Jim when he rides off and take his gun, as he sees Happy's horse dragging his body. Helen rides to find Jim, and she is captured by Hays and his men, who take her to Robbers' Roost, a hideout in the mountains once used by the Dalton gang. At night, they spot Herrick and other riders below in pursuit. Jim sneaks away and climbs down the mountain to alert Herrick. As Hays, who has tried to seduce Helen, starts to get rough with her, Brad interrupts and announces that Jim is gone. As Jim climbs back up, Brad cuts his rope. Jim manages to grab hold of the cliff and climb back up. He stops Hays as he is grabbing Helen and after a struggle, escapes from the cabin with her. During a shootout, Herrick and the others arrive, and Herrick shoots Hays as he tries to flee. As Helen hugs her brother, Jim rides off, but she pursues him and asks for another proposal. He says that he did not propose the first time, and after asking first for something she took from him, he kisses her.
Director
Louis King
Cast
George O'brien
Maureen O'sullivan
Walter Mcgrail
Maude Eburne
Reginald Owen
William Pawley
Clifford Stanley
Robert Greig
Doris Lloyd
Gilbert Holmes
Frank Rice
William Nestell
Vinegar Roan
Ted Oliver
Fred "snowflake" Toones
Frank Mcgrath
Dick Hunter
Frank Cordell
Clint Sharp
Crew
Val Burton
Al Cohn
David Cox
Opal Ernie
Charles Fetters
Bernard Freericks
James Gordon
Will Jason
Lou Kunkel
George Lipschultz
Bert Lynch
Cliff Lyons
Booth Mccracken
Dudley Nichols
George Schneiderman
Garnett Weston
Joseph Wright
Film Details
Technical Specs
Quotes
Trivia
Notes
The novel was serialized in Collier's (11 October-27 December 1930). According to Film Daily, the novel ranked among current fiction's best-sellers. According to a Film Daily news item, some scenes were shot in Sonora, California. According to information in the Twentieth Century-Fox Records of the Legal Department at the UCLA Theater Arts Library, Stanley Blystone was originally cast as "Mac." In 1955, United Artists released a film based on the same source, produced by Robert Goldstein, directed by Sidney Salkow and starring George Montgomery.
