Buck Jones

Buck was off the screen for over a year.

He connected with Columbia Pictures, which, at that time, was basically a B movie factory. Jones' first talkie was THE LONE RIDER (Beverly/Columbia, 1930), and it arrived in the theaters during the Summer of 1930. That entry, along with the next seven, were released through Columbia, but produced under the auspices of Sol Lesser and his Beverly Productions company. Lesser's involvement in B grade films went on for decades, and included: some early George O'Brien oaters released through Fox, the short-lived Smith Ballew westerns at 20th Century Fox, the TARZAN THE FEARLESS cliffhanger with Buster Crabbe, the CHANDU serial with Bela Lugosi, and many of the Tarzan flicks with Johnny Weissmuller, Lex Barker and Gordon Scott.

Overall, Buck's Beverly series was rock solid ... and proved that he could handle dialog and assorted screen chit-chatting in a reasonably believable manner.

Probably the best of the Lesser/Beverly entries is THE TEXAS RANGER (1931) --- Jones is the titled lawman who goes undercover, even has a scene as a saloon drunk, and his nemesis is the great Harry Woods, who is trying to run homesteaders off their land.

After the initial eight for Lesser, Columbia assumed direct control of the productions and the series continued through 1934 and nineteen oaters (a total of twenty-one films if you count the non-westerns CHILD OF MANHATTAN (Columbia, 1932) and HIGH SPEED (Columbia, 1932)).

Soon after Buck came on board, Columbia acquired the services of Tim McCoy. And McCoy and Jones gave Columbia a potent 1-2 punch at the box office during the early 1930s.

If you're looking for a solid but quirky film with Jones in an offbeat role, take a gander at THE THRILL HUNTER (Columbia, 1933). In it, the braggin' Jones weaves some tall stories and comes to the attention of a movie company that happens to be on location. There's even some race cars and airplanes, both of which were among Jones' real life pleasures. Another good one is SUNDOWN RIDER (Columbia, 1933) in which Jones gets branded as a rustler by a posse (some folks get this 'branding' film confused with Jones' 1931 Columbia BRANDED, simply because of the film title).

Louis King directed many of the early Columbias, while Lambert Hillyer and D. Ross Lederman were behind the camera on most of the later entries.

While many of the Jones movies were top-rate, there were a few misses - case in point is THE AVENGER (Beverly/Columbia, 1931), with a moustached Jones portraying bandit Joaquin Murrieta and trying to deliver lines with a Mexican dialect. While the production looks good, Jones is definitely off type.

(Courtesy of Les Adams)

(From Old Corral image collection)

Above from L-to-R are George Cooper, Jones and Barbara Weeks in FORBIDDEN TRAIL (Columbia, 1932).

(From Old Corral image collection)

A young John Wayne appeared in three of the Columbia oaters of Jones and McCoy. Above is Susan Fleming, Wayne, Jones, and William Walling in RANGE FEUD (Columbia, 1931).

(Courtesy of Dave Smith)

Above, Carmelita Geraghty shares a tender moment with Buck Jones in this lobby card from MEN WITHOUT LAW (Columbia, 1930), one of the Sol Lesser produced oaters which was released by Columbia.

(Courtesy of Dave Smith)

Above are Carmelita Geraghty and Buck Jones in a publicity still for THE TEXAS RANGER (Columbia, 1931), another of producer Sol Lesser's westerns starring Buck. Below is a blowup of the strange gun that Carmelita is aiming at Jones - has the Columbia logo near the grip and "Buck Jones Texas Ranger Repeating Gun" on the side. A cardboard giveaway?

Thanks to Texan Jim Bryan for details on this strange weapon: "... is actually a wooden rubber band gun rather than a cardboard giveaway. The rubber bands were stretched from the front of the barrel to the toothed gear-like wheel at the rear. Several rubber bands could be loaded at once making the gun a repeater. I bought two similar six-guns for my two grandsons last year in Colorado, and they have great fun shooting empty soft drink cans with them."