Hoot Gibson isn't the Hard Hombre, a bad man who's "killed a man for every year he's been alive", even though everyone thinks he is. He's William Penn "Peaceful" Patton, a mama's boy, who goes to work for widow Lina Basquette and trades on the bad man's reputation, until his impersonation is discovered.This early B Western by Otto Brower has a few bright moments and some nice riding and stunts, but it's definitely a weaker effort, despite Gibson's usual, relaxed moments. Miss Basquette, driven into the B ranks by the death of her first husband, Sam Warner, and the persecution of her in-laws, offers a decent Mexican accent and a few sultry moments, but not much else. It's definitely a lesser movie for Hoot Gibson, but one that his fans will want to see.

You have to hand it to Hoot Gibson, a look at the cast list for many of his Westerns shows that some of the prettiest actresses in Hollywood were his co-stars - Marjorie Daw, Marceline Day, Laura La Plante, Esther Ralston, Billie Dove, Sally Eilers and last but not least Lina Basquette. Lina Basquette would have made a terrific vamp but she arrived on the scene too late, although she did get a break when she was given the lead in Cecil B. DeMille's "The Godless Girl". But she was already embroiled in court battles and custody disputes with the Warner family whom she had married into in 1925 and by 1931 pickings were slim and she was reduced to the old standby - poverty row.After "Clearing the Range", "The Hard Hombre" went for straight comedy with almost no action. Hoot, once again, plays another peace loving cowboy - "Peaceful" Patton who is back home with his mother after tiring of his old job's fighting ways. Will then applies for a job as a ranch hand at Senora Martini's (Basquette) place and she, upset that he has made himself right at home, sends him on a dangerous job to recover 30 head of stolen cattle. Martini thinks he will have a difficult time but he doesn't, owing to the fact that most of the men mistake him for "the Hard Hombre" - a tough, quick shooting leftie - Will is a leftie but that is all he has in common with him. Of course Will can't understand people's attitude, he only has to raise his hand and people head for the hills but when he realises why he pretends to be the real one so he can clear up the range war that is turning farmer against farmer. He has a particular look where he squints up his eyes which turns the cowboys to jelly!!!When the real "Hard Hombre" comes looking for the cowboy who has made his name a laughing stock, things turn grim for Will but when the real one tries to rough up Will's mother, Will puts his peaceful ways to one side and viewers get to see the only action in the whole movie - a big fight scene!! Having a small scene as the sister the hard hombre promised to marry was Florence Lawrence one of the very first film stars. With the aid of some publicity by the then IMP president Carl Laemmle, she was the first star to be actually named thus paving the way for the star system of future years.

This movie starts out with "Peaceful Patton" (Hoot Gibson) riding right into the middle of a gunfight to try to get them to solve their problems without fighting. One immediately wonders what on Earth is wrong with him (perhaps he was dropped on his head numerous times as a baby) as this movie has an extremely weird take on what might otherwise be cliché (for example - if Don Knotts was in the role), but that's what makes it so amusing in parts, I guess.Seriously, having a "rule" to not fight certainly doesn't mean you are going to go way out of your way to make sure you get killed; in other words, Patton seems totally oblivious to almost every facet of reality around him for the first half-hour. Oh well, as long as his mother is happy (although she tends to shout and nag a lot). It is about halfway through the movie before Patton comes to see that people think he's the "Hard Hombre", but then the movie goes quickly downhill from that point, especially when Patton then actually has a gun for a short time (thus simply throwing his lifelong "rule" out the window for the sole benefit of hamming it up for no discernible reason) - kind of ruins the continuity and previous takes.The "Mexican" women certainly act, sound, and look a lot more like FRENCH maids. In fact, sometimes they sound so "French", it's like they're doing bad Napolean impressions. To be honest, I was seriously expecting a "certainly monsieur" in several scenes, and had this movie been filmed in Paris, I probably wouldn't have noticed. The Mexican man about 20 minutes in isn't much better - he sounds more like Werner Klemperer in an episode of "Hogan's Heroes".What I learned from this movie - "The Golden Rule" means "ladies first".I won't reveal the ending, but you'll probably be rolling on the floor with it.6/10

Fairly numbing western here, about a guy "Peaceful Patton" who's not afraid to wade into the middle of a gunfight to ask them to "come on out and talk it over peaceful!" Nothing doing! They're in the middle of a land war! Patton decides to get a job with a "mexican" lady And by "Mexican" I have to put that in quotes because Lina Basquette does, well, a BAD Spanish accent here. (Supposedly she was Hitler's favorite actress!). Anyways, there's rumblings around that Hard Hombre, a deadly criminal, is in the area. Somehow Patton is thought to be Hombre, and then everyone bows down to him, instead of treating him like the joke he is. Oddly enough, Patton DOESN'T deny at first he was Hombre, making this either believe that this was a brilliant twist, or just plain bad writing. Soon, Patton (as Hombre) brokers a land deal between the cowboys, until of course, the real Hombre comes along.,. Hoot Gibson (!!!) is alright I guess, but the script here is just awful, trundling from one boring scenario to another. You can tell when it's cheap by looking at the strange exterior scenes and how everything looks like it was filmed in an upscale neighborhood, when it's supposed to be a midwest town..