Border Sheriff on AllMovie

One of Jack Hoxie's best surviving silent Westerns, Border Sheriff makes an exciting detour to both a drug conference in Washington, D.C., and a knock-down brawl in a Chinatown dive. Hoxie is investigating drug smuggling on the border to Mexico. On his way West from the conference in Washington, he makes the acquaintance of pretty Joan Belden (Olive Hasbrouck) and her father (Tom Lingham). The latter is met in San Francisco by his oily business partner Carter Brace (real-life lawyer turned outlaw turned movie actor Al Jennings), who, as it turns out, is the brains behind the smuggling scheme. Hoxie makes a dashing figure in civilian garb (complete with rakish cap) and diminutive Gilbert "Pee Wee" Holmes is quite amusing as his dreamy sidekick. One very funny sequence has Hoxie hurrying to catch a train, dragging Holmes along by his suspenders. Equally amusing, but unintentionally so, is a scene where Hoxie, a well-known rodeo star, accidentally falls off his horse Scout. For reasons known only to Universal, the sequence made it into the released print. Even the romantic denouement in this fast-paced, well-written Western is inventive; handcuffed to Hoxie, Miss Hasbrouck inquires if she is to be taken off to jail. "No," comes the laconic answer, "to the minister." Playing Hoxie's foreman in the film is Bert De Marc, who later functioned as animal trainer on the star's real-life spread, the Broken Arrow Ranch. Director Robert N. Bradbury was the father of B-Western star Bob Steele.