 (Courtesy of Ed Tabor) Above Rex and an unidentified player in a lobby card from the silent THE GIRL-SHY COWBOY (Fox, 1928) |
 (From Old Corral image collection) Clara Bow, Paramount's "It" Girl |  (From Old Corral image collection) Above, Rex and the flaming haired Clara in a crop from a lobby card from TRUE TO THE NAVY (1930). The stars of the film were Bow and Frederich March. |
Bow and Bell became an "item", and in 1931, the pair eloped, married in Las Vegas, and settled down on a large ranch in Searchlight, Nevada. Over the next couple years, Clara starred in some talkies but by the mid 1930s, she opted to retire from the screen leaving hubby Rex to travel between the California studios and their Nevada home.
Their 'Walking Box' ranch was the subject of some recent publicity as it was up for sale again and the asking price was around $3 million dollars. It was sold in late 2000, but the final price was about $1 million. The spread includes a Spanish style two-story main house with over 5000 square feet of space and a three room guest house of about 1200 square feet. During the 1930s, there was a constant flow of Hollywood friends that visited including Rex's pal Clark Gable as well as Carole Lombard, Errol Flynn, Norma Shearer, Lionel Barrymore, others. They sold the ranch around 1944 when Rex got more involved in business and Nevada politics.
The arrival of talking pictures caused an upheaval as major studios and independents were forced to employ cumbersome sound recording gear. And many technicians and producers were pessimistic about the future of the lowly western programmer which required location filming. After some early trials and tribulations, outdoor adventures --- including the B western --- survived and thrived in the sound era. During this year or two period when talkies arrived, the career of Rex Bell was in slow motion.
He was featured in BATTLING WITH BUFFALO BILL (Universal, 1931), a twelve-chapter cliffhanger starring former FBO silent range rider Tom Tyler. And Bell found roles in some non-westerns which were released through little Monogram Pictures. He did FORGOTTEN WOMEN (1931) with Marion Shilling and LAW OF THE SEA (1932) which starred William Farnum and Sally Blane. He also starred as a suit-wearing reporter on the trail of the killer of a nightclub singer in ARM OF THE LAW (1932).
| From L-to-R are William Desmond, Lucile Browne, Rex Bell and Yakima Canutt in a scene from the chapterplay, BATTLING WITH BUFFALO BILL (Universal, 1931), which starred Tom Tyler. |  (From Old Corral image collection) |
Monogram had Tom Tyler and Bill Cody as the stars of their 1931-1932 westerns. Tyler and Cody were let go, and Monogram executive and producer Trem Carr signed Bell and Bob Steele for season 1932-1933.
Bell's eight westerns for Monogram were:
Harry Fraser was the director on five, J. P. McCarthy did a pair, and Armand Schaefer did one. The worst of the bunch is CRASHIN' BROADWAY (1933) which was helmed by McCarthy. There's very little action interspersed with lots of awful vaudeville performances, over acting, etc. And George Hayes, several years before he became "Gabby", has a dual role, one of which is a ham actor wearing an awful page boy wig.
These Bell flicks are often recalled because they involved modern settings, gangsters, fast movin' roadsters, and Rex traveling from east to west to resolve the story. However, these plots weren't unique to Rex's Monograms. Several of the Bob Steele adventures also utilized offbeat, non-traditional stories --- Bob was a boxer in THE FIGHTING CHAMP (Monogram, 1932); there was a dirigible in HIDDEN VALLEY (Monogram, 1932); Steele was a circus performer (wearing tights) in THE GALLANT FOOL (Monogram, 1933); and Steele even handled a sword and racing car in BREED OF THE BORDER (Monogram, 1933).