The Dawn Rider
1935 film directed by Robert N. Bradbury
The Dawn Rider is a 1935 American Western film starring John Wayne and directed by Robert N. Bradbury.
The film was later released in a colorized version on home video/DVD under the title Cold Vengeance.
Plot
John Mason arrives in town and soon has a fight with Ben McClure. After the fight the two have a drink together and discover that McClure works for Mason's father in his freight company. When they go to the freight office they walk in on a robbery with Mason's father emptying the safe at gunpoint. Dad Mason tries to draw on one of the outlaws but is shot through a window by another robber. Before he dies he tells his son that the killer was wearing a polka dot bandanna. John chases the bandits, shooting several, followed by Ben. John is shot off his horse and Ben finds him and takes him to the doctor. Alice Gordon, who Ben had introduced to John earlier, offers to look after him while he recovers at Ben's cabin while Ben is away.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “The Dawn Rider” as 1935 film directed by Robert N. Bradbury. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the arts & letters register because the source frames it as 1935 film directed by Robert N. Bradbury. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 5, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3514483. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1935.
Rights, attribution and provenance may remain disputed even when a general reference summary presents a stable account. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.
- Identifying works and editions
- Tracing reception history
- Finding collection records
The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “The Dawn Rider”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow The Dawn Rider primary sources, The Dawn Rider archive and Dawn research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “The Dawn Rider”?
- Where is authorship, date or provenance documented?
- Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “The Dawn Rider” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.