"Wild Horse Mesa" is a Zane Grey story with a cast of thousands, (horses that is). Set as it is in present day (i.e. 1925), it's hard to imagine large herds of wild horses running free such as those shown in this film in today's world.
Lige Melberne (George Irving) is a store keeper who is losing his shirt. His store is a shambles, as Eugene Palette discovers, with goods scattered all about, including a large supply of barb wire. Young Chess Weymer (Douglas Fairbanks Jr.) is the clerk supposed to be watching the store but has gone fishing. Chess has a teen age crush on Melberne's daughter Sue (Billie Dove).
Bert Menerobe (George Magrill) whom Sue seems to like, arrives one day with a proposition. If Lige will provide the financial backing Bert claims that they can capture an unlimited number of wild horses that are running free all over wild horse mesa. He proposes building a pen in which to keep the captured animals with barb wire strung around the enclosure to keep them in. The naïve Lige doesn't realize that many of the horses will be cut up trying to escape.
Chess' brother Chane (Jack Holt) meanwhile, has been trying to capture the statuesque white stallion that heads up the herd of wild horses, without success. He has been aided by his Indian friend Toddy Nokin (Bernard Seigel) whose young daughter Sosie (Margaret Moses) has her eye on Chane. One day Bud McPherson (Noah Beery, who has never been meaner) and his two cronies come into Chane's camp. Horse thieves if ever there were some, they plan to steal Chane's horses.
Chane manages to escape and flees the rustlers. After an arduous trek he stumbles into the Melberne camp exhausted and hungry. Chess identifies him as his brother while Chane takes an interest in Sue. Manerube becomes jealous.
McPherson and his pals come upon Sosie wandering alone after she left her family in search of Chane. They assault her. Later she crawls back to her father, tells him what happened and dies. Toddy Nokin vows revenge.
Manerube teams up with McPherson to drive the wild horses into their trap, barb wire and all. Melberne tries to back out and Sue pleads with them to not go ahead with their plan. Manerube has a change of heart but is shot down by McPherson's man. Chane still recovering from his ordeal realizes what is about to happen. Then the horses are stampeded and....................................................
There are three father/son stories involving the cast. Douglas Fairbanks Jr., who if one is to believe his birth date, was only sixteen at the time and was the son of Douglas Fairbanks who was at the peak of his own career. Jack Holt's son Tim became a star of his own series in the 40s and 50s as well as, appearing in a few "A" features. Noah Beery Jr. had a long career of playing the likable sidekick of the hero.
Also in the cast are Edith Yorke as Grandma Melberne who provides what comedy relief there is. And from the blink and you'll miss them department, Gary Cooper and Tom Tyler appear as background cowboys.
The horse stampede is itself worth the price of admission.
