Riders of the Law (Silent)

While tracking smugglers near the Canadian border, Sheriff Layne is ambushed and left for dead. He is rescued by two wandering cowboys, Jack Meadows and Toby Jones. Determined to find the men responsible for the attempted murder, Jack and Toby follow the smuggler's tracks back into town. Their only clue is a horse that is missing half of a shoe, so they take up jobs at the local blacksmith shop. But the pair must work quickly before the smugglers frame them for the attack on the Sheriff.

Cowboy star Jack Hoxie appeared in over a hundred silent westerns in the 1910s and 1920s, his popularity based largely on his rugged looks and his championship skills on horseback. After a half dozen talkies in the 1930s, Hoxie retired from films and left Hollywood to star in his own western-style circus. Co-star Marin Sais was Hoxie's wife at the time this movie was filmed, but they divorced three years later. Taking a rare turn in front of the camera in Riders of the Law is movie makeup legend, Jack Pierce, best known to filmgoers for his brilliant, classic work on Universal's Dracula (1931), Frankenstein (1931), The Mummy (1932) and The Wolf Man (1941).

• western