Lightnin' on AllMovie

Director John Ford was out of his element with this comedy, based on the hit Broadway play by Winchell Smith and Frank Bacon (Bacon also played the role of Lightnin' Bill on-stage). On the border between California and Nevada there is a hotel run by Mother Jones (Edythe Chapman). Her husband Lightnin' Bill (Jay Hunt) doesn't help much, but he does no harm either -- the easy-going fellow prefers to share a little nip with his pal Zeb (Otis Harlan) above anything else. Some swindlers attempt to buy the hotel with junk bonds so they can turn around and sell it to a railroad company for a sizable profit. John Marvin (Wallace McDonald) finds out about the scheme and when he goes to discuss the matter with Bill, he discovers that Millie (Madge Bellamy), the Jones' adopted daughter, is a girl he had met and fallen in love with some time before. Mother Jones convinces Millie that selling the hotel to the swindlers is the right thing to do, so Millie gets mad at John when he denounces the men and convinces Bill not to sign. Bill and Mother Jones split up over the matter and he goes to live at an Old Soldiers' Home. At the divorce proceedings, Mother Jones is touched by his testimony and takes him back. The swindlers are arrested, and Millie and John make up. Bill returns home to his hidden stash of moonshine and his pal Zeb.