Song of Old Wyoming
Brief Synopsis
Cast & Crew
Robert Emmett
Eddie Dean
Sarah Padden
Ian Keith
Al La Rue
Jennifer Holt
Film Details
Technical Specs
Synopsis
In Laramie, Wyoming, rancher Kate "Ma" Conway is locked in a dispute with crooked tax assessor and cattle buyer Lee Landow, who opposes statehood for Wyoming. Ma believes that joining the Union will help end lawlessness in the territory and drive greedy men like Landow and his cohort, banker Jessie Dixon, out of business. Ma publishes her views in her newspaper, the Laramie Bulletin , further aggravating Landow and Dixon, and turns down Dixon's offer to buy the paper. To hurt Ma, Landow sends his henchman, Ringo, to inform Ma that she must now pay a user's fee if she wants to drive her cattle through a public pass. Outraged, Ma's head cowboy, Eddie Reed, slugs Ringo, who then draws his gun on the unarmed Eddie. Before Ringo can shoot Eddie, however, a passing stranger draws his gun on Ringo and disarms him. Later, the stranger identifies himself as The Cheyenne Kid, and, despite his reputation as a notorious gunslinger, a grateful Ma offers him a job as a cowhand. Cheyenne turns her down, but after Landow and Dixon agree to pay him $5,000 to destroy Ma, he accepts Ma's job so that he can ruin her from the inside. At Ma's ranch house that night, Eddie catches Cheyenne stealing gold from Ma's money box and warns him not to do anything to hurt Ma again. Soon after, Cheyenne meets secretly with Ringo and his men, and they plot to rustle some of Ma's cattle. While Cheyenne diverts Eddie's attention on one part of Ma's grazing land, Ringo and the others lead some cattle into the river, where their tracks cannot be detected. Although Vickey, Ma's foster daughter and Eddie's sweetheart, believes Cheyenne's story that the cattle drowned, Eddie and Uncle Ezra, Ma's longtime foreman, are sure they were rustled with Cheyenne's help. Eddie privately accuses Cheyenne of being involved, but Cheyenne, who is attracted to Vickey, dismisses his charges as jealousy. Eddie and Cheyenne engage in a bruising fight, but when Ma stops them at gunpoint, Eddie refuses to implicate Cheyenne. Although Ezra advises Ma to fire Cheyenne, Ma insists that Cheyenne has more good in him than bad. Despite Ma's faith, Cheyenne continues to help Ringo and his gang rustle her cattle and dynamites her watering holes. Eventually, Ma's herd is depleted to the point of ruin, and she instructs Eddie to dismiss the other cowboys. As Eddie is delivering the bad news in the bunkhouse, he notices some carved Indian heads on Cheyenne's bed that are almost identical to heads carved by Ezra. Aware that Ezra had taught Ma's young son, who was presumed to have been killed in a renegade raid twenty-five years before, how to carve and had given him one of a pair of unusual knives, Eddie suspects that Cheyenne is Ma's long-lost son. Before he can confront Cheyenne, however, Cheyenne blows up the Bulletin office as a final act of sabotage. As Cheyenne is preparing to leave Ma's ranch for good, Eddie questions him about the Indian heads and his distinctive knife. When Cheyenne admits he got the knife as a child, Eddie tells him that he is Ma's son. Shamed by the truth, Cheyenne vows to get Ma's money back. To that end, Cheyenne rides to Laramie and demands that Dixon and Landow pay him the $5,000 they owe him. Landow and Dixon, who have been plotting with Ringo to double-cross and kill Cheyenne, refuse and draw their guns on him. Cheyenne escapes from Landow's office and heads for Dixon's bank, where he forces a clerk to hand over his money. Landow and Dixon try to stop Cheyenne by telling the townspeople that the bank is being robbed, but Eddie, Ezra and Ma's other cowboys arrive in time to rout the rustlers. During the gunfight, Cheyenne is fatally wounded and dies in Eddie's arms. Later, after Wyoming receives statehood, Ma celebrates on her ranch and looks lovingly on her dead son's grave.
Director
Robert Emmett
Cast
Eddie Dean
Sarah Padden
Ian Keith
Al La Rue
Jennifer Holt
Emmett Lynn
Robert Barron
Rocky Camron
Don Williams
John Carpenter
Horace Murphy
Ray Elder
Lee Bennett
Pete Katchenaro
Bill Lovett
Richard Cramer
Steve Clark
Crew
W. T. Crespinel
Eddie Dean
Robert Emmett
Carl Hoefle
Carl Hoefle
Max Hutchinson
Edward C. Jewell
Joseph I. Kane
Frances Kavanaugh
Marcel Lepicard
Milt Mabie
Raoul Pagel
Ralph Rainger
Leo Robin
Charles Stevens
Glenn [p.] Thompson
George Webster
Bud Westmore
William H. Wilmarth
Hugh Winn
Film Details
Technical Specs
Quotes
Trivia
Notes
The working title of this film was In Old Wyoming. Although Al La Rue played a character named "The Cheyenne Kid" in a series of PRC pictures, his character in In Old Wyoming is not related to the series character.
