AllMovie

Still suffering from the early talkie syndrome -- too much dialogue and too little action -- River's End nevertheless handles the inevitable double exposure scenes with élan. Charles Bickford is fine as both the Mountie With a Secret and his prey and their scenes together are seamless. In fact, the opening reel of this Northwest melodrama is by far the best, but everything seems to bog down once the action -- or lack thereof -- moves further south. The introduction of Evelyn Knapp (whose character name changes from Miriam to Mimi to Marian) and little Junior Coughlan is not felicitous as both suffer noticeably from microphone fright. The latter, especially, is painful to watch, flubbing his lines on at least two occasions and committing the cardinal sin of all child actors: being overly cute.