Wild West Days is a 1937 film serial (13 episodes) from Universal, directed by Ford Beebe and Clinton Smith.
It stars Johnny Mack Brown, who started out his career as an A-lister (he starred opposite Mary Pickford, Joan Crawford, and Greta Garbo in the late silent/early talkie era) but by this point was well into a long and very busy career as a B-Movie cowboy. Here he is, yes, a cowboy who glories in the name of "Kentucky Wade". Wade, accompanied by his buddies Dude Hanford, Mike Morales, and Trigger Benton, have come to a border town called Paradise Valley to work the ranch of Wade's old friend Larry Munro. After saving a wagon train from Indian attack, because that's what 1930s cowboys do, they show up at the "Circle D" Munro ranch, to find Larry's very pretty sister Lucy, and a lot of trouble.
It seems that the "Secret Seven", a local gang of crooks has been using intimidation and violence to drive out the ranchers along the valley. The Secret Seven are led by newspaper editor Matt Keeler, who writes editorials denouncing the violence in Paradise Valley even as he is the main perpetrator. The Circle D is the last ranch that Keeler and his coconspirators need to control a 15-mile section of the border that will allow them to smuggle cattle in from Mexico. In the first episode, on the same day that Wade and his friends arrive, Keeler's goons get Larry arrested on a trumped-up murder charge. Soon after Keeler sends a lynch mob to the jail, where Wade and his friends barricade themselves inside. Larry escapes out the back, but not before he's wounded in the shootout. Thirteen episodes of 1930s cowboy movie excitement follow.
Tropes:
- Almost Dead Guy: The "mouth organ kid" is shot In the Back in episode 10 but manages to live long enough to ride out to Kentucky and tell him that the bad guys are about to stampede Larry Munro's horses.
- Ask a Stupid Question...: Buckskin and Steve come back to the newspaper in episode 3 after "rescuing" Larry Munro and hiding him in the cave.Keeler: So you finally got back here, eh?
Buckskin: Did you figure that out by yourself, Keeler, or did you have to have someone help you? - As You Know: Matt Keeler and his fellow bad guys share some details with each other about how they're plotting to get the Circle D Ranch and how getting it will give them control of a 15-mile stretch of border land.
- Blasting It Out of Their Hands: Wade does this a lot, in true 1930s cowboy style. He does however actually kill a few people.
- Can't Kill You, Still Need You: In episode 2 the villains are happy to let Red Hatchet and the other Indians kill Larry for them, until they discover that there's platinum somewhere on Larry's land. They realize that they have to capture Larry for themselves to find out where the platinum deposits are.
- Cave Behind the Falls: The Secret Seven have just such a cave where they hide a kidnapped Larry in episode 3.
- Celibate Hero: Surpisingly, while Wade is the hero and leader of the good guys, he isn't the one who's romantically matched up with Lucy. Instead Lucy is paired off with Dude.
- Chekhov's Gun: In the first episode, the reason that the shootout happens to begin with is that Larry was in town to ask the assayer to look at some rocks from his ranch. The assayer says that whatever's in the rocks, it isn't gold or silver and is probably worthless. The second episode reveals that it's platinum.
- Determined Homesteader: Larry Munro, who won't let a little thing like a whole gang of heavily armed goons shove him off of his ranch.
- Died in Your Arms Tonight: The "mouth organ kid" expires in Kentucky's arms in episode 10, after he's shot by the bad guys.
- Dressing as the Enemy: In episode 6 Wade knocks out a bad guy, switches shirts with the bad guy, and hops on the bad guy's horse to fool the mooks who are on the other side of the ravine, looking for him.
- Eat the Evidence: In episode 7, Wade catches Driscoll as the latter is in the assayer's office, trying to forge Larry's signature. Wade determines to drag him to the sheriff, but they fight, and as they fight Driscoll stuffs the scrap of paper with the signature into his mouth and eats it.
- Film Serial: A 13-episode Universal serial.
- Gold Fever: Deliberately engineered by the bad guys in episode 8. The Secret Seven have lost control of Larry Munro. They know the platinum deposit is somewhere in a part of Larry's ranch called Apache Gulch, but they don't know where. What to do? They fake a gold discovery in Apache Gulch, figuring the whole town will rush out there with Gold Fever (they do) and find the platinum for them.
- Hiding Behind the Language Barrier: Buckskin says "we must talk like white man" to Red Hatchet in episode 4, so the rest of the Indians won't understand what they're saying.
- His Name Is...:
- In episode 10 Kentucky has finally pinned Doc Hardy after a fight, and is trying to basically strangle the truth out of him. Just as Hardy is about to expose Keeler, Keeler fires a shot from offstage and kills him.
- In episode 11 a dying Driscoll has time to name almost everybody else in the conspiracy but croaks right before he can say the name "Keeler" to Wade.
- Improbable Aiming Skills: Larry is being dragged by a horse, so Wade, who is a couple of hundred yards away at least, shoots the rope in order to save Larry.
- Inadvertent Entrance Cue: In episode 3, Buckskin reports that Lucy and Kentucky Wade "have gone up in smoke", burned at the stake by the Indians. Immediately after Wade and his posse pull up in front of the newspaper.
- Injun Country: In the first scene of the first episode Wade and his buddies stop to help defend a wagon train that gets attacked by Indians (naturally they all have feather headdresses). At the end of that same episode Wade is trying to get the stagecoach carrying Larry out of town, when he's waylaid by the Indians again. (The whole serial is super-racist towards Native Americans. Episode 2 is titled "The Redskins' Revenge".)
- Intro Dump: Wade and his friends arrive at the ranch and meet Lucy, and most of the good guy characters are all introduced at once.
- Kirk's Rock: One of approximately a billion productions to have cowboys riding through Vazquez Rocks. Wade and his friends do so in the very first scene. Then in multiple episodes throughout the series somebody is chasing somebody else through the rocks.
- No Honor Among Thieves: Driscoll and Steve discover the location of the platinum deposit in episode 11. Driscoll then decides to keep it for himself, and shoots Steve...but Steve isn't dead.
- No Name Given: The boy who plays the harmonica in the saloon is only ever called the "mouth organ kid". It's particularly noticeable in episode 10 when the Mouth Organ Kid is killed for helping the good guys, and Kentucky and company talk about how the Mouth Organ Kid was shot and wonder why the Mouth Organ Kid was killed.
- Off-into-the-Distance Ending: Ends with Wade and two of his buddies (Dude staying behind to be with Lucy) riding off in search of adventure again.
- Outfit Decoy: In episode 5 Mike puts his cowboy hat on a rock. Two Indians dismount, creep up, and discover that Mike isn't hiding behind the rock—and in the meantime Mike has circled around and made off with their horses.
- Previously on…: Like with many serials, each episode after the first starts with a little crawl reminding viewers what's happening in the story.
- Reports of My Death Were Greatly Exaggerated: The gang is mourning the report in the local paper about Kentucky and Dude being killed in the canyon fire, when Kentucky and Dude come in the back door. Dude says "Don't believe everything you read in the papers."
- Rope Bridge: The cliffhanger at the end of episode 3 has Wade and a sidekick trying to cross a rope bridge, which the bad guys make more difficult not only by shooting, but also by flinging boulders down the mountain in an effort to destroy the bridge with them on it.
- The Seven Western Plots: Plot #2, namely, the "ranch story" in which a Determined Homesteader has to save his ranch from a rapacious gang.
- Shoot the Rope: In the second episode the Indians have tied Larry to a horse, when then goes galloping across the countryside dragging Larry. Wade rides over the crest of a hill, sees this happening in the distance, and shoots through the rope with a rifle to save Larry.
- Stock Footage: Uses a lot of stock footage as all film serials did. Stock footage is used for a lot of the Indian attack in the first scene of the first episode.
- Tickle Torture: In possibly the weirdest moment in the series, Mike and Trigger have Buckskin prisoner in episode 10 and are trying to get information out of him. Mike chooses to torture Buckskin by tickling his feet with some scrub brush. It doesn't work as a gang of bad guys shows up before Buckskin talks.
- Twisted Ankle: A relatively unusual example of this trope in that the victim is not actually being chased by a bad guy. Instead, in episode 9 Kentucky and Dude are trapped in a wildfire (set by Steve) and trying to find a way out, when Dude falls and hurts his leg. Kentucky has to pick him up and carry him as the trees and brush burn all around them.
- Video Credits: The opening credits feature clips of all the main players.
- Villain with Good Publicity: Keeler, who calls for law and order and justice and writes editorials denouncing the violence against ranchers, while actually orchestrating that violence. In the second episode, after the bad guys learn that Larry escaped out the back and thus evaded their clutches, Keeler makes a big show of denouncing the lynch mob. When an irritated Buckskin complains about this later, Keeler tells him that he denounced them to gain the sheriff's trust, after he secretly sent Steve and another group of bad guys off to kill Larry.
- Walking the Earth: Kentucky Wade prefers it. At the end of the series Larry tries to get Kentucky to stay and work his ranch. Kentucky declines, saying "I've been drifting too long to settle down." So instead he leaves.
- The Wild West: Yes! Horses, cowboys, a Determined Homesteader, Injun Country, shootouts with six-guns...
