Beau Bandit (DVD)

Smooth-talking Mexican bandit Montero (Rod La Rocque) and his deaf-mute sidekick, Colosso (Mitchell Lewis), are being pursued through the sand dunes of southern Arizona by lawman "Bobcat" Manners (Walter Long) and his posse. Montero plans to rob a bank owned by skinflint Lucius Perkins (Charles Middleton), who also owns the mortgage for lovely singing teacher Helen Wardell's ranch. Helen (Doris Kenyon) pines for poor-but-handsome dirt farmer Bill Howard (Tom Keene), but Perkins wants to marry her. When Perkins pays Montero to kill Howard, Montero starts an escalating game of "this gun for hire" in which he sets farmer against banker against posse, all in the name of romance. And Montero has a very unique definition of romance This zippy, early-sound-era Western gets a lift from the great rapport and one-sided banter between antihero Montero and sidekick Colosso, along with some inspired camera work from future Western film director Lambert Hillyer.