King of the Royal Mounted
Brief Synopsis
Cast & Crew
Howard Bretherton
Robert Kent
Rosalind Keith
Alan Dinehart
Frank Mcglynn Jr.
Arthur Loft
Film Details
Technical Specs
Synopsis
Helen Lawton and her lawyer Becker travel to Keeway in the Canadian Rockies, the country where her deceased father once owned part of a valuable ore mine, with the intent of claiming Helen's interest in the property. At their hotel, Becker instructs Helen to use a fake name, Curtis, and to tell anyone who might ask that she is on vacation. King, sergeant of the Royal Mounted Police, visits Helen to ask about her immigration status and informs her that he knows she has given him a false name. Helen denies the charge angrily, but when her canoe overturns in some rapids and King instructs her to wade out of the shallow water, the two develop an interest in one another. Meanwhile, Becker plans with Sneed, one of the original partners in the mine, to take Helen's part of the claim for himself. He goes to visit Dundas, the mine's present owner, and offers to settle with him out of court or else sue him for fifty percent of the mine's net profits from the time that Helen's father died and Dundas took over. Meanwhile, Becker tells Helen that their quest to find her father's mine is hopeless and that she should leave the area after giving him power of attorney. Recognizing Dundas' name from a conversation with King, Helen happens to meet him at a Mounties dance. As Sneed listens in, she asks him about her father's mine, and the honest Dundas brings her to his house where they discuss the affair privately. Dundas agrees to help Helen but asks her not to tell Becker about their meeting. Becker arrives and becomes angry that Dundas plans to settle fairly with Helen. He then grabs Dundas' gun, and as the two men struggle, the gun goes off, killing its owner. Before seeing the police, Becker instructs Helen to say that she never met Dundas and knows nothing about the mine, and convinces her that King will stop at nothing to get a suspect for the murder. Upset that King cares more about the case than their love, and believing Becker that the Mounties want to throw her in jail, Helen agrees to secretly escape the area. King discovers that Dundas' gun was used in his murder and surmises that Helen, a suspect, could not have wrested the murder weapon from her more powerful opponent. King learns that Helen has left town, and he and his partner Slim pursue the renegade lawyer Becker, Sneed and Helen, who have fled on horseback. Helen asks to use Becker's handkerchief and discovers in it a petunia from Dundas' rare bush. Knowing that Becker was in Dundas' house the night before, she rides away and hides behind a cliff. King arrives and struggles with Becker, and after subduing him, rescues Helen, who has fallen down the side of the cliff. King then tells Helen that she will be detained in Keeway forever, if she is willing, and they kiss.
Director
Howard Bretherton
Film Details
Technical Specs
Quotes
Trivia
Notes
The plot summary was based on a screen continuity in the Twentieth Century-Fox Produced Scripts Collection at the UCLA Theater Arts Library. The comic strip was appearing in several hundred newspapers throughout the country at the time of the film's release. According to a Hollywood Reporter news item, Jean Parker, who was scheduled to play the female lead, developed an eye infection from makeup poisoning. She earlier had developed an eye infection while testing for M-G-M's The Good Earth, and the makeup inflamed the raw breaks in the skin of her eyelids. Rosalind Keith was borrowed from Paramount and quickly joined the company at the Mammoth Lake districts of the Sierra Nevada Mountains in California. An early news item from January 1936 noted that George O'Brien, who was originally to star in the film, might be replaced by Richard Arlen. Shooting on the film took eighteen days and was completed one day ahead of schedule, according to a news item. According to Variety, this was to be the first in a series of outdoor features produced by Sol Lesser for release by Twentieth Century-Fox. In 1940, Republic Pictures produced a serial based on the same source, directed by William Witney and John English and starring Allan Lane.