AllMovie

Handsome and usually sporting a manly mustache, Robert E. Burns was one of many real-life cowboys who drifted into films on the heels of the final round-ups. Burns graced the western genre for more than four decades, usually playing stage-drivers, lawmen or, occasionally, outlaws. But back in the mid- and late 1920s, producer-director Horace B. Carpenter attempted to turn the lanky Westerner into a bonafide cowboy star. Most of those films remain obscure, but one, Just Travelin', has survived and it is frankly a mystery why Burns never caught on. Handsome and more virile than many of his better-known rivals, Burns plays a drifter who comes to the aid of a prospector (Harry O'Connor) and his daughter (Dorothy Donald). The two are having trouble with a vicious French-Canadian heel (Lew Meehan), who is lusting after both the gold and the girl. The surviving print of this otherwise mediocre oater is nicely tinted (O'Connor's gold shines especially bright) and benefits from one of Meehan's most florid performances as the French-accented (via the title cards) seducer. Bob Burns never made it as a cowboy star but remained in films until 1951's Rough Riders of Durango.