After Burton kills Dad Mason and makes it look like a suicide, Ace Cooper arrives to investigate. He poses as a coward during the day but at night he becomes the daring Dude Bandit.
Was never a fan of westerns, but am when it comes to Hoot Gibson! His unassuming/cool temperament is quite adorable...not to mention his skill with horses!
This is the only copy, I have found of Dude Bandit, that has the full beginning of the original movie. Many are very chopped up and compromised due to multiple recopying. The movie makes no sense without this part of the story. Hoot Gibson, was a great horseman and gentle leading man. Of his many accomplishments, he won "All Around Champion Cowboy" in 1912 at the Pendleton, Oregon rodeo. Of course, guns and fistfights have always been a part of western flicks, but people were very human in these very early westerns. Much of the old west is retained because it was still a lifestyle then and not just Hollywood improvisation.
*Skeeter Bill Robbins* Born: July 16, 1887, Wyoming Died: November 28, 1933, Los Angeles, CA Robbins was in real life not an actor but the manager of Gibson's ranch. Tall, lanky Roy Raymond “Skeeter Bill” Robbins (1887-1933) only appeared in just over a dozen films, all of them westerns. Ten were of them were as Hoot Gibson’s comic relief and were made between 1931 and 1933. A Wyoming native. Robbins started out as a cowhand and rodeo performer; his wife Dorothy Morrell was one of the top female rodeo stars of the day. The pair came to Hollywood in the ’20s to manage Gibson’s ranch and Golden State Rodeo. Skeeter was hired for a bit part as a barfly in on Don Quickshot of the Rio Grande (1923) with Jack Hoxie, and got bit by the bug. A couple of other silent pictures followed. He was a stunt man in the 1929 version of The Virginian. With talkies came the Gibson films, his last being The Fighting Parson (1933). Then tragedy struck. Robbins was driving through a snow storm on the Mint Canyon Highway near Acton, California, when he stopped to wipe snow off his headlights. A three car pile up resulted, and Robbins was run over, sustaining fatal injuries. That was a bad year for Gibson - he was also in a plane crash that year, though he survived. Robbins was 46 at the time of his passing.
