This RKO-Pathé release features cowboy star Tom Keene in a change-of-pace role, as a rodeo rider who must repair his body and restore his reputation after being thrown by a wild horse. Not as flamboyant as his rivals on horseback, the New York-born Keene never developed the following hoped for by his RKO bosses, nor would he transition with complete success to straight dramatic roles - though King Vidor did make him Karen Morley's leading man in the Depression drama Our Daily Bread (1934). Playing Keene's rodeo antagonist in The Saddle Buster (1932) is Robert Frazer, perhaps better known to fans of classic horror as the weak-willed secondary villain manipulated by Bela Lugosi in White Zombie (also 1932). Like Frazer, Tom Keene would be remembered by future generations of movie-lovers less for his signature work than for his chance cult film casting in Ed Wood's Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959), in which the actor appears as an army colonel attempting to suppress reports of flying saucers. One member of the Saddle Buster crew who did considerably better for himself was assistant director David Lewis. Later a protégé of Irving Thalberg at MGM, Lewis left Metro upon Thalberg's death in 1936 and found work at Warners, associate producing Dark Victory (1939) and King's Row (1942) before returning to MGM in style as producer of Edward Dmytryk's Technicolor epic Raintree County (1957).

By Richard Harland Smith