The Vanishing Pioneer (1928)

The Man from the East

Jack Manning is a young man, one year out of college. His father, recently died, leaving him a fortune. And as the father was a retired banker, Jack has nothing to keep him in New York, with the exception of Elsie Dean, a rich banker's daughter. Jack is desperately in love with Elsie.

A Man in the Open

Sailor Jesse, shipwrecked off the Texas coast, naively becomes involved with a cattle rustler. Because the sheriff believes in his innocence, Jesse finds work as a cowboy, but soon becomes infatuated with Polly, the medium for fake hypnotist Bull Brooks, and marries her. When he learns that Polly married to win a bet, Jesse attempts to take her from the town's influences to open spaces, but Brooks falsely reports that she killed herself rather than go.

The Flaming Forties

A young cowhand befriends a disreputable gambler and pulls him out of some trouble. Hoping to square things with his new friend, the gambler seeks to warn him about the cowhand's fiancée, about whom the gambler knows some unsavory details.

Woman Hungry

This film, believed lost, was based on William Vaughn Moody's 1906 play The Great Divide. The story was filmed as a silent film by MGM as The Great Divide (1925) and as an early silent/sound hybrid by First National also called The Great Divide (1929). Judith Temple has come West to Arizona for some excitement. As she says goodbye to her brother and his wife, who are returning to the East, Dr. Neil Cranford, who is in love with her, is called away to tend the broken ribs of a man injured in a barroom brawl.

California

"Wicked" Lily Bishop joins a wagon train to California, led by Michael Fabian and Johnny Trumbo, but news of the Gold Rush scatters the train. When Johnny and Michael finally arrive, Lily is rich from her saloon and storekeeper (former slaver) Pharaoh Coffin is bleeding the miners dry. But worse troubles are ahead: California is inching toward statehood, and certain people want to make it their private empire.

The Water Hole

Judith Endicott, the daughter of a wealthy eastern banker, vamps Philip Randolph, an Arizonan, when he comes east to talk business with her father. Philip proposes and discovers that Judith has only been kidding him along. He returns angrily to Arizona, and the elder Endicott, accompanied by his daughter, follows him west. With her father's permission, Richard "kidnaps" Judith and takes her to a deserted Indian cliff dwelling, where she must cook and care for him. Bert Durland, Judith's fiancé, follows after her, and his Indian guide steals all of the horses. Judith and Bert and Philip start back to civilization across the desert, and Bert goes berserk from the heat. They are rescued by cowboys, and Judith returns east, "kidnaping" Philip and taking him with her.

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs

Vignettes weaving together the stories of six individuals in the old West at the end of the Civil War. Following the tales of a sharp-shooting songster, a wannabe bank robber, two weary traveling performers, a lone gold prospector, a woman traveling the West to an uncertain future, and a motley crew of strangers undertaking a carriage ride.

The Oregon Trail

18 episode adventure serial. 1. Westward Ho!, 2. White Treachery, 3. Across the Continent, 4. Message of Death, 5. Wagon of Doom, 6. Secret Foes, 7. A Man of God, 8. Seeds of Civilization, 9. Justice, 10. The New Era, 11. A Game of Nations, 12. To Save an Empire, 13, Trail of Death, 14. On to Washington, 15. Santa Fe, 16. Fate of a Nation, 17. For High Stakes, 18. Victory

Three in Exile

In order to save lovely Lorraine from a gang of claim jumpers Art teams with his wonder dog and horse.

Quantrill's Raiders

A Civil War guerilla gang plans an attack on a Kansas arsenal.

The Wilderness Trail

Set in the Northwoods of Canada, Tom Mix stars as Donald MacTavish, the newly appointed head commissioner of the Hudson's Bay Company. This promotion infuriates MacTavish's rival Angus Fitzpatrick (Frank Clark) who wanted the job. Angus Fitzpatrick takes his anger and resentment out on MacTavish then sets out to get MacTavish fired.

Thunder Trail

A wagon train is robbed by a gang of bandits who kill everyone but a pair of young brothers. Years later, the brothers join force to bring the bandits' leader to justice.

Fort Utah

An ex-gunfighter goes up against a man who is trying to stir up trouble with the Indians to enrich himself.

Wagon Train

In his first starring Western for RKO, young Tim Holt must not only carry on his father's freight business but also hunt down his murderer. A certain Matt Gardner wants to corner the freight business to Pecos and persuades young Zack Sibley's wagon master to switch sides. Zack also earns the enmity of Gardner's son Coe, who takes umbrage to the youngster's flirtation with pretty Helen Lee. It all comes to a head during a food shortage in Pecos, a near-disaster that persuades the wagon master to switch sides once again. When the dust settles, Zack learns that old man Gardner is actually Carl Anderson, the man who murdered his father.