An amusing western about a movie company filming a western, 1933's Scarlet River was initiated by David O. Selznick during his stint as studio boss at RKO. Harold Shumate's smartly turned tale features cowboy star Tom Keene playing cowboy star 'Tom Baxter,' in search of a good film location for himself and his leading lady Babe Jewel (Betty Furness). The irony is that filming westerns around Los Angeles is getting tough because of all the new real estate developments and hot dog stands. Tom chooses the Scarlet River Ranch, owned by pretty Judy Blake (Dorothy Wilson). She authorizes the filming to raise needed income, not realizing that her foreman (Creighton Chaney, soon to become 'Lon Chaney, Jr.') and a crooked banker have been burning her stores and stealing cattle to force her to sell out to them. Director Otto Brower has fun with more Hollywood in-jokes, as when Myrna Loy, Bruce Cabot and Joel McCrea are seen in the studio cafeteria. He also receives terrific comedy relief from slow burn comedian Edgar Kennedy, as the director of the film-within-the-film. Add to this formula the stuttering comedian Roscoe Ates (Freaks, 1932) in a non-stuttering role as a cowpoke who wants to be a screenwriter, and famed stuntman Yakima Canutt as Tom Baxter's stuntman, and Scarlet River is a clever and satisfying entertainment. For a happy finale, the movie company rides to the rescue like the cavalry, and Tom proves himself a hero off the screen as well.

By Glenn Erickson