Tom Tyler and Lon Chaney Jr: The Perfect Match

The son of a very famous silent film actor – one better known as “The man of a thousand faces” - Lon Chaney Jr. usually is not the first name that comes to mind when discussing B-westerns of the 1930’s.  While he certainly has the looks and demeanor that make him the perfect heavy in a western, the craggy faced actor has in fact appeared in a number of low-budget westerns dating back to the early 1930’s, often billed under his given name, Creighton Chaney. Lon Chaney Jr. has appeared with stars such as Dorothy Gulliver, Tom Keene, and Gene Autry in low-budget westerns. In “Cheyenne Rides Again” (1937), Lon teams up with a different kind of western star, Tom Tyler, who turns in one of his best performances in a B-western. Lon Chaney Jr. not only gets to see one of Hollywood’s handsomest men up close and in person – but also gets to witness Tom’s athletic prowess. How incredible and impressive is that, for an actor like Lon to appear in a movie with Tom Tyler? In Lon Chaney Jr.’s case, not only did he get to witness Tom’s physical strength in action – but also experience it.

Playing the cattle rustler Girard – even that name sounds clichéd for Lon, evoking a noir image of gangsters ready to pull a bank job – Lon is in many ways the perfect match for Tom Tyler. The onscreen chemistry is there, the hero and the heavy, when the two men are sizing up each other, and ready to throw the first punch. For example, when Girard and his men are in Tom’s living room, anxious to get their hands on the 10,000 dollars that Tom confiscated from them and hid in the room they are standing in, the camera pans each man back and forth. Lon Chaney Jr. looks like he just drove in from a dust storm, while Tom is wearing his skintight white shirt, complete with the black lace bow in front and the side zippers, showing off his physical assets. Being disarmed, Tom feigns a plan to hand the money over to Girard, and in turn, catches the rustlers off guard, sending them across the room using a backward push while standing on a chair in front of the fireplace. Tom sends pieces of furniture at them, a chair or table narrowly missing some of the crooks, while a displaced sofa takes a beating. Girard reaches for his gun, aims and shoots at Tom, who dives out a closed window, narrowly escaping the bullet.

Girard knows that Tom is a Cattlemen’s Protective agent and exposes him as such when they are in a house with Rollins (Ted Lorch) and Gleason (Ed Cassidy) the two men who were about to approve Tom as a fellow rustler. Tom moves quickly, engaging in an all-out brawl but meets a roadblock in the form of Girard’s gun which knocks him out temporarily. Once Tom finds a way to escape and lead Girard and his gang in the direction of the sheriff, his mission is accomplished, and the money is returned to its owners, the cattle ranchers.

As the heavy, Lon Chaney Jr. certainly holds his own against Tom Tyler, and because Tom’s onscreen characters are usually portrayed as being clever, so is Girard in “Cheyenne Rides Again”. To the viewer who watches this movie for the first time, the only question is: “When will Tom’s nemesis finally catch up with him?”