Bergorks
If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.
Melanie Bouvet
The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.
Myron Clemons
A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.
Lidia Draper
Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.
bkoganbing
During the silent years Harry Carey was a major screen cowboy hero, but before transitioning to character roles in sound he was gradually going down the scale of studios in his western. This one Without Honor was as poverty row a western as they get.In Without Honor Carey does a part he did a lot of on the silent screen, the good bad man. When his Texas Ranger brother is killed investigating a gang on a border town, Carey steps into the fray.He also clears up a decades old kidnapping and reunites mother and daughter and wins mom's everlasting gratitude.I have to say the gang really had a clever scheme at money laundering after a robbery. I'll say that the shallowness of the Rio Grande River aids and abets in this idea.Carey fans should like this, it would have been better with a major studio values.
classicsoncall
Harry Carey Sr. and the rest of the cast seem to be stuck in silent picture mode a good part of the time in this picture. Dialog between characters is punctuated by uncomfrortably long pauses, making the character interaction somewhat less than credible. Carey himself is involved in a lot of these scenes, and you have to wonder why the actors would think it would be a good idea to communicate this way. Combined with the stiff movements of the characters, this is a bit of a chore to make it through.Then there's the story. The bad guys were smuggling, but what it was I don't know. But the whole smuggling plot is interrupted by Pete Marlan's (Carey) quest to find his brother's killer, and reunite a former flame (Mae Busch) with her long lost daughter. But get this - remember the character Vanero (Ed Brady)? He stated that he was biding his time while Donovan (Gibson Rowland) raised her so that he could marry her. What?? - for how long, like twenty years? The kid was taken away from mother Mary right after villain Steve Henderson had Mary's husband killed. He then used a forged bill of sale to convince Mary that he bought their place! Then, if you thought THAT was hard to follow, how about the Ranger Captain, Frank Henderson (Lafe McKee)? Why did Pete Marlan keep calling him Chief White Eagle??? OK, he had white hair, but what was the connection to the Indian name? None of this was explained, and hence didn't make any sense.Notwithstanding Harry Carey's long and successful career in silent films, he's generally effective here even though a bit long in the tooth. My quick math puts him at fifty four at the time of the picture, and looking maybe even ten years older. Which is why he looked a tad old for Mary, and even creepily more so for Bernie (Mary Jane Irving) while she was hanging off him and begging to be taken away.
winner55
Every now and then you find a real gem in the rough among the old genre films.This is the toughest-minded Western of its type I've ever seen. There are elements here prophetic of the 'adult Western' that would come into its own in the '50s, and some elements are suggestive of what became the 'film noir' of the '40s. As a gambler out to avenge his brother's murder (really a precursor of the 'anti-hero' type that would dominate Westerns in the '60s), Harry Carey gives a bravura performance: Marlin (Carrey) is on his way to meet the gang leader. Mary: Oh, that's dangerous! Marlin: Huh? Mary: That's dangerous. Marlin (pushing his hat forward): Gosh, I hope so.Mary. BTW, is Marlin's old flame, a woman of questionable repute who has married a bad man after being widowed and who gave her daughter away - a daughter raised by an alcoholic who beats her.Yeah, this is not one for the kiddies. Consider for instance the fist-fights - typical barrel-house round swinging, broken chairs, etc, right? Wrong. How about close order efforts to get behind the other guy and knock him down with a gun butt. Fighting fair is for people who don't like to win.Short, dark and handsomely made, this film is light on genre conventions and hard on impact. Absolutely remarkable for it's period. 1932? Absolutely remarkable.
FightingWesterner
Slick gambler Harry Carey returns from cleaning up in Mexico to find his younger brother, a Texas Ranger, murdered by a gang of smugglers and in possession of a letter implicating himself in criminal activity. Carey pins on the slain man's badge, setting out to clear his brother's name and nab the killers.In all, this is a very typical, ordinary low-budget production and is often quite turgid. However, this benefits greatly from a fantastic performance by Carey, who even in an impoverished movie such as this, has much screen presence. Co-star Mary Jane Irving is awfully pretty too, even though she overacts just a tad.Carey and Irving, along with some good scenery and sets, all make this a lot more entertaining than it should have been.The last scene has a joking reference to Scarface, another 1932 release!