Unfortunately, there aren't many Karlson trademarks on view here, as this is a rather benign and inconsequential film on any level. In fact, it's lovable character actor Edgar Buchanan who ends up stealing the show. Buchanan was a welcome presence in many dozens of movies, including quite a few westerns, and his invisible acting technique is quite wonderful here as he plays a town doctor who says things like "The more I see of people, the more I like horses."
Top-billed William Bishop, meanwhile, turns in a wooden performance as a man who drifts into a western town with a wagon and horses. The town's current wagon-driver (Forrest Tucker) immediately takes offense, assuming that Bishop is trying to horn in on his business. Bishop spends much of the film being painted by others as a chump, a weakling, and afraid to fight back. Of course, he has his reasons, but the movie makes him remain a chump for a long time, and when he inevitably lets loose and reasserts his toughness, it's still not forceful enough to feel wholly satisfying for the audience.
Meanwhile, the town's weekly gold deliveries have been terrorized by a lone gunman known as "the monk" -- yes, "the monk," so named because he wears a hooded robe that conceals his face. It's as ludicrous as it sounds. Everyone wants to know the monk's true identity, and naturally suspicion soon falls on Bishop. There's also a romantic interest played by Gloria Henry, a very pretty blonde newcomer in only her fourth movie -- and whose hairstyle looks quite a bit more 1940s than 1870s! Henry never graduated to leading roles in A films, though she did appear in a few, like Miss Grant Takes Richmond (1949) and Rancho Notorious (1952). Mostly she stayed in the "B" world until she went to television and scored her biggest success playing the mom in Dennis the Menace (1959-1963). As of 2012, she is a still-occasionally-working actress.
The screenplay, based on a Robert Louis Stevenson story called "The Silverado Squatters," actually places Stevenson into the story. In something of a framing device, Stevenson (Edgar Barrier) rides into town, pen and paper in hand, looking for stories. He mostly observes the "monk" story, but enters the action at a key moment.
Adventures in Silverado has a few action scenes, mostly involving thundering, galloping horses, but the movie remains rather lifeless and never really picks up. Available as a burn-on-demand title in the Sony Choice Collection, the transfer is beautiful and the film looks and sounds technically immaculate, but surely Sony has more worthwhile titles in its Columbia library to spend time and money on putting into the marketplace.
By Jeremy Arnold
