“You see, stranger, I am a sheep man.” — James Farley (Ed Porter)

On the frontier, a range war has broken out between the cattlemen and the sheepherders.  When rancher Seth Darnell is murdered, the blame is put on the sheepherders.  When the Cheyenne Kid (Reb Russell) rides up on the small camp of the sheepherders and hears their problems, he decides to investigate on his own by getting a job at the Darnell ranch.  Soon, Cheyenne is discovering the truth and also being pursued by both Darnell’s daughter (Victoria Vinton) and the daughter (Tina Menard) of the leader of the sheepherders.

Reb Russell was a former college football star who had a minor B-western career in the 30s.  Supposedly, he didn’t really much care for Hollywood and he retired from acting in 1935, the same year that The Cheyenne Tornado came out.  Russell went on to find a lot of success as a rancher himself.

The Cheyenne Tornado is a typical B-western.  It’s short.  There’s a lot shots of men riding on horses.  There’s a little gunplay and a mystery that anyone should be able to solve.  The acting is bad all the way around with even star Reb Russell failing to make much of an impression.  It probably did not matter to the film’s target audience in 1935.  They were there for the old west action and the movie does deliver that.