Gil Jones (Ronald Reagan) lives on a ranch with his cantankerous uncle, Henry (Lionel Barrymore).  After their cattle are stolen by the notorious bandit Pancho Lopez (Wallace Beery), Gil and Henry are faced with the prospect of losing their ranch.  Banker Jasper Hardy (Henry Travers) wants to foreclose on Henry and take over the ranch but a businessman named Morgan Pell (Tom Conway) shows up and offers to pay the then-huge sum of $20,000 for the land.  Accompanying Morgan is his wife, Lucia (Laraine Day).  Lucia was Gil’s childhood love and Morgan fears that Lucia still loves Gil more than him.  Also in the mix is Gil’s comic relief best friend (Chill Wills), who has a crush on Hardy’s daughter (Nydia Westman).  Negotiations are interrupted when the flamboyant Lopez and his men return to the ranch and take everyone, but Gil, hostage.

This sepia-toned film is based on a stage play, one that had already been filmed twice.  It was Ronald Reagan’s first film for MGM and, when Reagan was running for President, he quipped that if he could survive acting opposite Wallace Beery and Lionel Barrymore than he could survive negotiating with Leonid Brezhnev.  The role of Gil is a typical Ronald Reagan role.  He’s good-natured and dependable and a little boring.  Because he once saved Lopez’s life, Lopez is willing to help him out with his problems.  Reagan is not bad in the role but he is overshadowed by Barrymore and Beery, two veteran actors who chew the scenery with gusto here.  Berry speaks in an exaggerated and not at all convincing Mexican accent while Barrymore bellows all of his lines.  Gil has so many different people yelling at him that it’s impossible not to feel sorry for him.  Morgan has ulterior motives for offering to buy the land and Tom Conway is a convincing villain.  Lopez helps out Gil and her uncle, saving not only their land but also plotting to bring Gil and Lucia back together.  It’s a stage bound mix of drama and comedy that doesn’t really work, though Beery and Barrymore are amusing and Ronald Reagan shows why he was cast in so many best friend roles.

Whether you’ll enjoy it will probably depend on how you feel about the cast because they’re really the only reason to watch.  If you’re a fan of Barrymore, Beery, or Reagan the film might work for you.  If you’re not, this stagey 70-minute western is probably not for you.