W.E. Sprague

Mudhoney

In this Depression-era tale, Calef McKinney (John Furlong) is traveling from Michigan to California and stops in Spooner, Missouri, where Lute Wade (Stuart Lancaster) hires him for odd jobs. McKinney gets involved with Wade's niece, Hannah Brenshaw (Antoinette Christiani). But she is married to Sidney (Hal Hopper), a wife-beating drunk who hopes to inherit his uncle-in-law's money. Sidney and an eccentric preacher named Brother Hanson (Frank Bolger) plot against McKinney, who finds it difficult to conceal his mysterious past and his growing affection for Sidney's wife. Sidney winds up burning his farm and attempting to frame McKinney. He rapes and murders the preacher's wife and is killed by the lynch mob.